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COMflENTARIES 



ON 



HEBREW AND CHRISTIAN 
riYTHOLOQY 



BY 



/ 
JUDGE PARISH B. LADD, LL.B., 
Of the San Francisco Bar 



DEC 4. >»^^fe 1 



New York: 

THE TEUTH SEEKER COMPANY, 

28 Lafayette Place. 



JU 



^-l^^ 

.\>-^ 



Copyrighted, 1896, 

by 

Parish B. Ladd. 
All rights reserved 



CONTENTS. 

Preface vii. 

Primitive divinities, how made 1 1 

Divinities selected in the heavens 12 

Origin of the priesthood 14 

Chaldea, its territory, people, religion and language. 18 

The people of Chaldea 19 

Abraham: was he a myth? 23 

The germ of Judaism formed at Ur of the Chaldees . 25 
The Semites cross the Euphrates and become He- 
brews 2y 

The Hebrews go mto Egypt 29 

Egyptian influence on the Hebrew 30 

Hebrews as herdsmen in Egypt 31 

Hebrews as nomads 32 

Moses and the Exodus 33 

The Hebrews from the time they went into Egypt 

until the captivity 36 

The Hebrews in Egypt 37 

The sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt 38 

Jehovah and the Hebrew ritual borrowed from 

Egypt 47 

Moses at Mount Sinai 48 

Moses and his laws 49 

Origin of the books of Moses and other sacred writ- 
ings of the Hebrews 53 

Modern Judaism 65 



iv Contents. 

Origin of the Sabbath 66 

Chaldean legends of creation 69 

Mosaic legends of creation 71 

The Chaldean flood legend y2 

Hasisadra's story of the deluge 75 

The Biblical flood yy 

Comparison of the Mosaic and Chaldean legends ... 78 

Accounts of creation by Berosus and others 78 

Zoroaster's account of creation 79 

Hindu account of creation 80 

Scandinavian account of creation .0 80 

The Sadducees' and Pharisees' versions of the Mes- 
siah 82 

Christ, or Christus, was he a real character or was 

he a myth? 83 

The crucified man (if there was one), who was he, 

when and where was he born? 94 

The time when the hero was born being unknown, it 

was arbitrarily fixed 98 

Had Christ any education? 100 

More Messiahs than one loi 

The twenty historical Messiahs 104 

The four gospels and other Christian writings as 

legends and forgeries 109 

The gospels as seen by some of the early fathers 

and others iii 

Authorship and time of the writings 115 

Alexandrian codex or Bible and others 119 

The cross, the Trinity, and the creed were of Pagan 

origin 138 

The apocryphal and lost gospels 142 

The gospel of Nicodemus 144 

The gospel of the infancy of Christ 146 



Contents. 



V 



What do we know of Peter and the apostles? 148 

The twelve apostles 149 

The apostolic fathers and their writings 149 

Apollonius of Tyana 152 

The council of Nice 160 

What do we know of the sayings and doings of 

Christ? 163 

Pagan miracles 164 

The world without Christianity 168 

Rome at the time of the origin of Christianity 168 

Arrogance of Christian doctrines 169 

Low character of the early Christians 171 

The apostles 172 

Quarrel over the trinity and incarnation 173 

Quarrel over images 176 

Battle of Tours 177 

Quarrel over the sacrament 178 

Constantine, first Christian Emperor 179 

Summary of the origin of Christian mythology 180 

Records of the church in evidence 185 

First crusade 185 

All Europe in arms 187 

Capture of Jerusalem 188 

Other crusading expeditions 189 

Records of the inquisition in evidence 189 

Persecutions in England 190 

Inquisition established 191 

Persecutions in France 194 

Spanish persecutions 194 

Persecution of the Jews I95 

The Reformation, Luther and Calvin 200 

Dark ages 203 

Witch-burning by the church 205 



vi Contents. 

The pope and priesthood 207 

Trial and punishment of quadrupeds and insects by 

the church 209 

Mythology of ancient Persia 214 

Chinese philosophy and transmigration 215 

Mythology of Egypt 221 

Mythology of Greece 222 

Comparison of the different religions 223 

Conflict between science and religion 224 

What is life? 225 

Conclusion 228 



PREFACE. 

The claim which has so long been persistently main- 
tained of the supernatural origin of Christianity and its 
Christ has at last been met by positive denials, and 
thereby an issue has been raised. 

Because of the natural difficulty of proving a negative, 
the rule has long since been permanently established 
that he who asserts a thing which is denied must first 
offer proofs sufficient to make a prima-facie case, before 
the party denying the allegation is called upon for a de- 
fense. 

Has the church ever made sufficient proof that its re- 
ligion and its founder were of supernatural origin to 
call for counter-evidence? We think not; but this claim 
has been made, and for nearly nineteen hundred years it 
has been acquiesced in by a very large and respectable 
body of men calling themselves Christians. 

It may be said, not without some show of reason, that 
this long acquiescence is equivalent to proof sufficient to 
make a prima-facie case. 

Assuming such to be true, we are put on the defensive, 
but with the right to enter a special plea as to the force 
of the proof offered by the church, and under this plea we 
may criticise the church's position, and inquire: First, 
whether such a man as Christ is said to have been ever 
lived; second, if he be a real person, then what do we 
know of and concerning his sayings and doings. 



viii Preface. 

There never has been a time when pubHc sentiment so 
emphatically demanded a clearer insight into the ground- 
work or origin of Christianity as at this time. 

This is an age of unrest, an age of intelligence: the 
masses of our people are thinking for themselves; they 
are no longer satisfied to accept the dogmatic expressions 
of the priest and clergyman on these issues ; they are de- 
termined to investigate, to look into the foundation of a 
system of religion which seems to them to violate the 
well-recognized rules of natural law, and thereby conflict 
with their common sense. 

They are told by their priests and clergymen that their 
Christ was the son of the creator of the universe, begotten 
of an earthly woman, and that their creed, or system of 
religion, is also of divine origin. 

Notwithstanding the long acquiescence in this claim, 
the default has been set aside, and the case put on the 
calendar for a trial on its merits. 

The question here presents itself: How is the proof 
to be obtained, and where is it to be found? The great 
mass of our people have been and are too much en- 
grossed in business to have kept up with the numerous 
works of critics, scientists, and historians which have been 
published in the last fifty years, or to even suspect where 
the needed evidence lies. Very few, even intelligent peo- 
ple, know anything concerning ancient history, as studied 
from the ruins of monuments of Chaldea, Egypt, and 
Assyria^ or the numerous works of science and criticism 
which have so shaken old opinions and beliefs. 

The facts disclosed by these works are practically out 
of the reach of most people, because they have not the 
time or patience to hunt up and wade through hundreds 
of volumes to obtain such knowledge. 



Pre/act. ix 

The aim of the author of this Httle work, after years of 
toil among the voluminous works on different branches 
of this subject, has been to collect, collate, arrange, and 
condense from the writings of others, the matters bearing 
directly on the several points under discussion herein; to 
state the facts and conclusions in a clear and concise man- 
ner, so as to afford to most readers all of the desired infor- 
mation as to the origin or foundation of Christianity and its 
Christ; also the foundation of Judaism, on which Chris- 
tianity rests. 

The evidence so collected, and presented herein, we 
think, clearly estabHshes the following facts, to wit: 
That Judaism rests on myths borrowed and copied from 
legends in common use among all of the Oriental nations; 
that Abraham was a myth; that Moses has been buried 
beneath the debris of legends which from time to time 
enveloped him; that the Pentateuch, the so-called five 
books of Moses, was not written by Moses, nor until from 
five hundred to a thousand years after his death ; that the 
Bible story of the creation, of Adam and Eve, as w^ell as 
the flood, are but myths borrowed from legends and 
copied into Hebrew scriptures. 

As to Christianity and its founder, we think the evi- 
dence raises a serious doubt of the man's existence; that 
if he ever did live, the fathers of the church have never 
been able to find out when he was born or when he died, 
or to fix the real time within more than one hundred years; 
that the time given in the scriptures was arbitrarily fixed 
by the church in furtherance of its interests and at the ex- 
pense of truth; that of the sayings and doings of Christ 
little or nothing is definitely known ; that the four Gospels 
and other Christian writings are forgeries, and were made 
up from tradition, letters, and scraps picked up here and 



X Preface. 

there, voted into the Canon in the interest of the church, 
to which have been added, at different times, such matters 
and things as suited the church; that much of the sacred 
writings was the result of force, fraud, and bribery. 

In point of moraHty, after citing and comparing most 
of the pagan rehgions with Christianity, we find them all 
superior to the latter. 

As to the leaders of the church, Catholic and Protes- 
tant, the evidence shows them to have been dogmatic, 
superstitious, intolerant, and cruel in the extreme ; that to 
perpetuate their power and rule, they have put to death 
more than 30,000,000 of innocent men, women, and chil- 
dren, a very large proportion of whom were tortured in a 
manner only conceivable by fiends. 



COMMENTARIES ON HEBREW AND 
CHRISTIAN MYTHOLOGY. 



Primitive Divinities — flow Made, 

In the Hebrew Genesis we are told that Abraham came 
out of Ur of the Chaldees. The city of Ur at the time of 
the mythical Abraham, was the capital of Elam. At the 
dawn of history, some four thousand years B. C, the 
whole country from the Persian Gulf to the Zagras 
Mountains was known as Mesopotamia. The low flat 
country of the south, bordering on the Persian Gulf, was 
known as Accadia. Accadia, at that early date, was di- 
vided into small districts; each district had a capital city 
in which a large temple was erected for the worship of 
the divinities. Each capital was governed by a Pator, 
being king and priest in one, and each city had its special 
deity. Prior thereto, at that time, and for a long time 
thereafter, not only in Asia but in most parts of Europe, 
each household had its divine protector and its sacred fire, 
in which household, at first the father, and in later times 
the Pator, or priest, resided and ruled the family. This 
is believed to be the origin of the great family of Gods, 
who since that time have presided over the inhabitants of 
the earth. 

After the organization of the tribes, and building of 
cities, it became necessary to appoint or establish munici- 
pal deities with enlarged powers to preside over the tribe 



12 Commentaries on Hebrew 

and city as the household Gods had presided over the 
family. 

Notwithstanding this tribal or city God, it was a long 
time before the household divinity became obsolete, for 
we are told in Hebrew mythology that even Abraham 
had his household Gods at the city of Ur. These family 
divinities in later times became known as Talismans. 

When a tribal or municipal deity was created, he was 
named by the joint action of all the Pators, or forced on 
the people by the ruling faction, and his powers and du- 
ties were by this body defined and established. 

When several tribes or cities had united, as they did for 
mutual protection, into kingdoms or empires, Gods for 
such kingdoms and empires were created by the joint ac- 
tion of all the Pators. or their representatives, of such 
kingdoms and empires, sanctioned by the sovereign, 
who generally sat in and presided over the council. The 
last council of this character held its session at Nice, and 
was presided over by the great Constantine. No one of 
these Gods ever arose to the dignity of presiding over the 
world until after the reign of Solomon, when the king- 
doms of Judah and Israel cast ofif Ab-Ram and Elohim, 
and out of the debris created Jehovah. 

Divinities Selected in the Heavens. 

In the creation or selection of deities, the material was 
sought for in the heavens. The Sun was everywhere se- 
lected as the head or national divinity; out of the other 
planets and from natural phenomena other and lesser 
Gods were made. The Sun being the source of light, 
heat, and life, there could be nothing more natural than 
that it should be selected to occupy the first and highest 
place in the heavens and in the affections of man. The 



And Christian Mythology. 13 

head of these celestial divinities was given, or supposed 
to possess, unHmited wisdom, and power over all lesser 
Gods, and over man. Early man, reahzing pleasure and 
pain, the former good and the latter bad, naturally de- 
duced therefrom a dual principle; so he created an evil 
being, and fixed his abode in and below the earth. Hav- 
ing thereby created good and evil beings, repre- 
senting good and evil principles, he naturally concluded 
that these good and evil beings must be at war with each 
other; and as he had created these two beings with no 
higher type than his own to model from, he created them 
in his own image; to the one he gave his good attributes, 
and to the other ascribed his evil, dark nature. Now, as 
man loved light, and the numerous blessings it brought 
to him, he looked up, welcomed the dawn, worshiped 
the sun in its onward course through the heavens, and 
went to his cave or cabin in mortal dread and fear of wild 
beasts and other evils, where he poured out his prayers 
for the return of the solar orb. 

Such was man in his savage and semi-savage state, in 
his nomadic life. He had thus created for himself a sys- 
tem of celestial beings, on whom he could call for help in 
time of need; he had made them in his own image be- 
cause he had no higher type to work from. 

These divine beings have ever been created by man in 
his savage and semi-savage state; they were the natural 
products of his own ignorance of the laws of nature. The 
various phenomena of nature, he being unable to account 
for them, were ascribed to this mysterious power. Hav- 
ing created these beings and worshiped them in his sav- 
age and semi-savage state, he left them as an inheritance 
for later generations. While civilized man could tolerate 
and worship these stale, antiquated Gods, because of long 



14 Commentmnes on Hebrew 

standing, he could never tolerate the creation of new 
ones. It remained for the Council of Nice to create the 
last of these heavenly rulers. Having created the Gods 
out of the heavenly bodies and the phenomena of nature, 
and believing that they were, Hke himself, endow'ed with 
will power, and could do him good and harm, he naturally 
sought to propitiate them, to get their good will and to 
secure their aid. To do this, he offered prayers, sacrifices, 
and entreaties invoking special powers. Nor is it 
strange that, in the course of time, he should come to be- 
lieve that he received such powers. The Accadian 
mythology (says the Encyclopaedia Britannica) had its 
origin in astrology; the stars were personified and be- 
came Gods. The Semites accepted this system, which 
was handed down to the Jews, and later was adopted by 
the Christians, and the devil, with horns, claws, tail, and 
wings, as found on the Assyrian bas-reliefs, was copied 
by the Christians. 

Origin of tlie Priesttiood, 

During all this time there grew up a class of men more 
cunning, if not more wise, than the populace, who pre- 
tended and claimed to see and converse with the Gods, 
face to face, and to be able to obtain special favors for 
those not versed in hidden mysteries. 

It being to the interest of these mediators to encour- 
age the belief in their special powers, and finding the 
uninitiated ready believers, the priests soon gained influ- 
ence, control, and even dominion over their unsuspecting 
subjects, who became blind devotees of their wdly priests. 

In order to retain their influence, power, and dominion, 
these crafty pretenders promulgated laws, rules, and pre- 



And Christian Mythology. 15 

cepts for the observance, guidance, and control of their 
dupes and votaries. 

That these laws, rules, and precepts came directly from 
the Gods has ever been the pretense of the priests in 
every religious system; and as such they have been 
too sacred to be questioned, at least by the uninitiated mul- 
titude, and so the great unthinking mass of mankind have 
at all times accepted, without thought, question, or 
murmur, the Gods and laws so made, as divine truths. 

In this way a priesthood under different names was ver> 
early established, and became a fixture and a power 
among all, or nearly all, of the peoples and tribes of the 
earth. This power and dominion did little harm to man 
in his barbaric or semi-civilized state, nor was its baneful 
influence materially felt until a later day, when this ec- 
clesiastical power was extended over the civiHan as a 
citizen or subject of the state, and the people found them- 
selves within the grasp of this divine octopus. 

The people so priest-ridden found it easier or more 
agreeable to accept without question what was given 
them by a class of men whom they looked upon as 
possessed of great wisdom and divine power than to 
think for themselves. These beliefs, so accepted and 
acted upon, having been handed down from generation 
to generation, and from century to century, became 
part and parcel of man's very nature; nor has it been an 
easy matter for more enlightened men to throw ofif this 
long-established network of myths, fables, and falsehoods. 
Some men nominally accept these beliefs because it is to 
their interest to do so ; others because it is less trouble to 
follow an established error than to oppose it. 

The true believer of to-day, if there be any such, finds 
himself compelled in religious matters to lay aside his 



16 Commentaries on Hebrew 

reason and even his common sense; his rehgion is con- 
stantly at war with natural law; though he may for a 
time succeed in driving out nature, she is sure to return 
to claim her own. Time obliterates his false religion 
when nature calls him back home again, for nature is 
never at variance with sound reason and philosophy. 

These priests in early times made images or statues of 
their Gods, and set them up in dense forests and other 
lonely places, where they spent most of their time in pray- 
ers and solemn festivals, and where they acted as inter- 
preters of the divine will for and at the call of the devotee. 
These images were sometimes attached to hidden springs 
and machines, which were worked to produce sounds in 
the presence of the dupes, and these noises were inter- 
preted by the priest as best suited his purpose. In Egypt, 
as late as the time of Moses, the Egyptian and Hebrew 
priests adopted a system of chance, the result of which 
was interpreted for good or evil as best suited the caller 
and best worked in the interest of the priest. In later 
times, the Hebrew substituted for the oracle, the dreamer 
and the prophet. On this subject, Ernest Renan, one of 
the greatest of biblical scholars and critics, in his "His- 
tory of Israel" says: "Man created a divine world in his 
own image, and treated the Gods of it as he liked to be 
treated by his inferiors. There was an exchange of po- 
liteness between trembling man and the potent forces by 
which he believed himself to be surrounded. Primitive 
man saw in thunder naught else but the explosion of the 
wrath of an all-powerful being dwelling in the clouds and 
on the summits of mountains. This primitive man, in 
his savage simplicity, his senses scarcely at all developed, 
became the dupe of his own hallucinations." 

This author further says : "It has never been discov- 



And Christian Mythology. 17 

ered that a supreme being concerns himself with events 
either of a physical or moral order; no signs have been 
discovered in nature of any intelligent agent superior to 
man; nature is inexorable, its laws are blind; prayer 
never encounters any being that it can turn from its pur- 
pose." 

As to the effect of prayer, this author only states what 
every man of common sense knows to be true. But, it 
may be asked, Why is prayer kept up? The answer is 
obvious: Clergymen get their living by it; and as to 
others, some are too ignorant to understand anything, 
and some act from force of habit. 

The philosophers of Greece and Rome, ever refusing 
to accept the religion of their times, were by the pious 
denounced as Infidels and Atheists. These religious 
men claimed that what had been believed and main- 
tained by pious men in olden times, and had stood the 
test of ages, must be true, but, says Renan, "Philosophy 
and reason dispelled ignorance, created doubts, and 
finally religion was buried beneath its myths and fables." 

Robert Burton, the author of "The Anatomy of Melan- 
choly," made an apt statement when he said, "Ignorance 
is the mother of devotion." The proof of this is shown 
by the facts that the three most religious nations in the 
world, Spain, Italy, and Portugal, exhibit an average of 
seventy-three persons out of* every hundred who can 
neither read nor write, while Germany, France, England, 
and the United States average less than eight per cent, 
who cannot read or write. Germany, the least religious 
of all, has less than one-half of one per cent, who cannot 
read or write, while in Mexico, and the Central and South 
American states, nearly all of the educated people are 



18 Commentaries on Hebrew 

Freethinkers, and nearly all, if not all, of the ignorant be- 
long to the church. 

Chaldea, its Territory, People, Religion, and Language. 

First: Its Territory. — Before proceeding to the discus- 
sion of Hebrew mythology, it will be in order, first, to 
take a cursory view of Chaldea, its territory, people, re- 
ligion, and language, which have contributed so largely 
to the stock of ideas held and promulgated by the tribes 
of Israel. 

The Hebrews were of Semitic stock or origin, and are 
supposed to have led a primitive hfe in Arabia, whence 
they migrated to Chaldea, some of them settling in the 
city of Ur. At a very early date, and before Chaldea had 
risen to a state of importance, the eastern part of the 
country was known as Elam, of which Ur was the capi- 
tal city; and when the territory of Elam had ceased to 
exist as a separate kingdom, and had been lost or merged 
in Chaldea, Ur remained for a time the principal city of 
the Chaldees. It was located on the west branch of the 
Euphrates, near where that river, at that early time, en- 
tered the Persian Gulf. The territory of Elam never ex- 
tended north of the low flat country at the head of that 
gulf, but it extended east over the land of Persia. Dun- 
gi, one of its earliest known kings, ruled over the country 
at least as early as 2400 years B. C. About 2200 years 
B. C. the Elamites overran and conquered the land of 
Chaldea, which lay at the north of Elam ; and about 2000 
B. C. Chaldea united with Babylon, and under their king, 
Chedorlaomar, war was made on Elam, which, after a 
long struggle, surrendered. These peoples, being 
merged into one, fixed their capital at Ur. From this 
|:ime on, the country remained under one monarch under 



And Christian 3IytJiology. 19 

the general appellation of Chaldea or Chaldeo-Babylonia, 
under which name or names it continued to grow in 
wealth and power for a long period. The capital being 
finally removed to the city of Babylon, the country took 
the name of Babylonia. 

According to the opinion of most historians, the myth- 
ical Abraham became a prominent figure in the city of Ur 
of the Chaldees, about 2000 B. C, but according to the 
reckoning of Josephus, Abraham lived about 1836 B. C. 

About 2000 B. C. the country was invaded from Arabia 
by a people known as Semites. This people set up their 
rulers and held the country for a short period, when 
Babylon threw off this foreign yoke, and re-established 
her power; but the wars which followed between Baby- 
lon and Assyria put the former in a position to pay trib- 
ute to the latter for short periods. Finally Babylon fell 
a prey to its more powerful neighbor on the north, and 
became a part of the Assyrian Empire. 

When Assyria fell under the yoke of Persia, Babylon 
ceased to exist, but the great city retained its name and 
influence until its final destruction by Alexander the 
Great, 332 B. C 

The People of Chaldea, 

Second: The People of Chaldea. — It is said, and often 
repeated by historians, with some discrepancy of opin- 
ion, that the whole of the country called Mesopotamia 
was settled by a yellow race called Turanian ; and that the 
Aryans or white race migrated from southern Russia or 
Afghanistan, and mixed with the Turanian, thereby creat- 
ing a new stock. It is also both asserted and denied that 
Ethiopia sent into this country some of her people called 
Cushites, who had. curly or woolly hair, who, with the 



20 Commentaries on Hebrew 

Semites from Arabia, made up the Chaldeo-Babylonian 
race. 

Let it be here said that, while very much has been as- 
serted by historians as to the prehistoric migrations of 
the various races of mankind, very little is known; most 
of such statements are mere conjecture. Every country 
at the dawn of history has been found peopled by a race 
who asserted that they had come into the country from 
elsewhere, and had either driven out, exterminated, or 
mixed with the people found there. It is quite well estab- 
lished that the Chaldeans differed but slightly in appear- 
ance, manners, customs, and religion from the numerous 
tribes or peoples who at that epoch lived in the country 
bordering on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, 
and more especially the Canaanites. 

Now let us return and see how near we can fix the date 
when the little band of Semites conceived the first idea of 
the oneness of divine powxr, and from what source they 
derived it. As to the time when the so-called Abraham 
of the Chaldees resided at Ur, authors do not agree. Jose- 
phus says that the 430 years which is the biblical account 
of the time the Hebrews were in Egypt, were evenly di- 
vided between Palestine and Egypt, 215 years in each 
country. If this be correct, assuming that Moses lived 
1400 B. C, it would fix Abraham's time in Chaldea at 
1800 B. C; but this does not agree with the account 
given by numerous other historians. While all agree 
that Josephus was an honest historian, the same opinion 
says that he was very inaccurate. It is quite certain that 
he did not have the resources for his facts that we possess 
concerning Abraham and Moses. As to the time of 
Moses, authorities diflfer, placing him from 1300 to 1500 
B. C. Several fix the time at 131 5 to 1320 B. C., and this 



And Christian Mythology, 21 

seems the more reliable. Assuming the time of Moses 
to be 1320 B. C, we shall find Abraham at Ur about 2100 
B. C. It becomes important to know what were 
the religious sentiments of the people of Ur of the 
Chaldees at this date, so as to find the source from 
which sprang the notion of a single divinity. We have 
ample evidence that the Chaldean divinities were 
numerous at that time. They were divided into three 
classes. The third class was extremely numerous, com- 
prising many of the household Gods which had not be- 
come extinct. The first two classes were made up of 
trinities. The names of the three comprising the first 
class were Anu, El, and Hea; El is often called Bell, and 
Hea called Ea. 

We will now proceed to speak of the first triad, who, 
as it will hereafter appear, were the progenitors of Jeho- 
vah. Of these celestial beings, Anu, El, and Hea, each 
possessed special attributes and was assigned special 
duties. In that age of the world the tendency was to 
personify the heavenly bodies, the phenomena of nature, 
the rivers, mountains, peoples, tribes, and nations; in 
short, nearly every important thing and event received 
an individual name. These three divinities were the per- 
sonified representatives of the sun, the earth, and the 
waters. 

Anu had his abode in the upper heavens beyond the 
reach of mortal eyes, and so was little known and wor- 
shiped; he had a general supervision over the lesser 
Gods, and a temple at Erech. El was the creator of all 
things, the manager and general superintendent over all 
mankind; he created the heavens and the earth, divided 
the land from the waters, and, according to the Chaldean 
legends, which have come down to us in writing, he made 



22 Commentaries on Hebrew 

man out of the dust of the earth, and called him Admi. He 
also created the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, 
and the fishes and monsters of the deep. He gave Admi 
a wife, and placed the pair in a garden through which 
flowed four rivers. The pair were commanded by El not 
to eat of the fruit of a certain tree ; they w^ere tempted by 
a serpent, disobeyed the command, and were for this 
reason driven from the garden and a flaming sword was 
put at the gate to prevent a re-entry. This legend was a 
representation of nature. Admi and the woman were but 
personifications of earth and water; all of which we will 
describe more fully hereafter when we come to compare 
the biblical account of this matter with the Chaldean ac- 
count of it, as given in the inscriptions taken out of the 
ruins of the cities in that country. 

El was also a God of war, had his temples in all the 
cities of Chaldea, and was worshiped from the Indus to 
the Nile. The sun became the emblem of El, and as the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms were produced and sup- 
ported by the light and heat of that orb, so El became 
the first object of worship. It was to him that prayers 
ind sacrifices were ofi'ered; he w^as the giver of the har- 
vest, and of all things which administered to the comfort 
and happiness of man. In the course of time Anu and 
Hea were regarded as separate attributes of the all-power- 
ful Elo, representing the three cardinal virtues of life; 
knowledge, goodness, and power. 

Standing by themselves, they were three Gods personi- 
^led as Anu, El, and Hea, but when merged into one, the 
•me took the name of Elohim. It w^ill be remembered 
ihat the Hebrews used indiscriminately the names of El 
and Elohim down to the time of the exodus from Egypt, 
and to some extent these names were in use by them in 



And Christian Mythology. 23 

connection with lahveh until the time of David and 
Solomon, when lahveh or Jehovah was substituted. It 
i^ now generally believed that the true pronunciation 
is Jahwe, or Yahwe, says the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

Hea, when standing alone, was the God of the nether 
world, the waters of Hades and the spirits of darkness. 
Ol the second-class divinities stood Merodah, Arabel, and 
Sharmis. The first had a shrine at Babylon, the second 
resided at Muru, while the third ruled at Larsa and Sip- 
para. The Goddess Ishtar, daughter of Hea, was the 
most beloved of all the divinities ; she had her temples in 
all of the principal cities. 

Such was the religious sentiment in the land of the 
Euphrates, at the time of Abraham. 

Abraham, Was He a Myth? 

Now let us go back and take a look at Abraham in the 
city of Ur of the Chaldees, where the Hebrew legends 
find him a genuine person ; and if he be such, we will go 
with him out of that land, cross the Euphrates, stop at Ha- 
ran, the city of the moon God, for two or more years, and 
then travel with him into the promised land. 

The word Abraham was written and pronounced at 
Elan, ''Orham, Aborh-am, and Ab-Ram." Some archae- 
ologists have asserted and maintained, not without a fair 
degree of evidence, that the word Abraham applied to a 
tribe. This name appears on the inscriptions found 
among the ruins of that country as Aborham, who was 
one of the Gods. At least one of the tribes which mi- 
grated from Ur to Canaan was designated as Ab-Ram. 

Renan, the great archaeologist and biblical critic, says: 
*The inhabitants ol Padan Aram were particularly at- 
tached to the legend of the fabled Orham, king of Ur, 



24 Commentaries on Hebrew 

and called him Aborham; who was represented some- 
times as a man, and at other times as a God. The tribes 
originally ascribed to him the part of supreme ancestor 
and divine patriarch; the Hebrews pronounced his name 
Abraham, which they interpreted, father of many na- 
tions, but they often called him Ab-Ram, the mighty 
father." 

Renan also informs us that the Ishmaelites, the Midian- 
ites, and the whole series of Arab tribes grouped under 
the names of Cuthura and Agar, were classed as Abram- 
ites; that their manners, customs, and language were 
much the same ; and that they formed one vast brother- 
hood from Haran to southern Palestine. This author 
further says that among the tribes devoted to the worship 
of El, connected with the mythical Abraham, was Israel; 
that Beni Jacob, or Beni Israel, was the name of a tribe 
which, in the course of time, became personified under 
the name of Jacob, and that this tribe worshiped El ; that 
Lot, like Abraham, was but the personification of another 
tribe. Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, of the priestly order, 
born twenty to ten years B.C., taught and wrote that Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob were but personifications of three 
phases or elements of virtue ; and such were the teachings 
of the Rabbinical schools of Palestine, long after the re- 
turn of the Hebrews from Egypt. This school also 
taught that the Pentateuch and the legends of Moses 
were but allegorical; its literal interpretation was an ab- 
surdity, says Philo. In order to make Judaism palatable 
to the refined Greeks, Philo attempted to prove to them 
that it was the same as their philosophy. 

Having disposed of Abraham as a myth, let us return 
and follow the growth of Israel, from the little germ 
formed at Ur, until it has become a power in the land. 



And Christian Mythology. 26 

About 2200 years B. C. the plurality of divinities in 
Chaldea had reached its limit, when, at least, the Semites 
were ripe for a change. 

The Qertn of Judaism formed at Ur of the Chaldees. 

It has been maintained with much force by eminent 
scholars, that man never originates within himself an 
idea; that all new conceptions are suggested to him by 
some object in nature, which he grasps and molds into 
form. 

Taking such historical facts as we find before us, and 
proceeding according to the method of induction, may 
we not safely say that a little group of Semites had 
banded themselves together to remold or adjust the pre- 
vailing system of divinities? The city of Ur was in a hot 
country; this Httle band assembled at noonday under the 
wide-spreading branches of the fig tree. There they 
talked over the traditions concerning the powers of 
heaven, in which they saw Gods contending in battle 
among themselves, in like manner as the tribes of the 
earth. They also repeated the legends of creation, of 
Adam and Eve, of a great flood, and many other marvel- 
ous occurrences; and they wondered if all these things 
were true. They read in this tradition that in bygone 
times Asia was divided up into small tribes, constantly 
at war with each other; they saw their own country ruled 
over by a king, a single monarch, who governed and pro- 
tected his people and gave them peace and happiness, 
and if a single monarch on earth (for Asia was the earth 
to them), why not a single monarch in the heavens? 
They had thus borrowed the germ, and grasped at its 
utility. 



26 Commentaries on Hebrew 

From this little beginning sprang the ten tribes of Is- 
rael, who created the Rabbi, who established the ephod, 
which was replaced by the oracles, which made the 
prophets who foretold the Messiah, who selected the 
apostles, who laid the tgg that hatched the priestlet, who 
estabHshed the Inquisition that drove the stake and 
kindled the fire that consumed unbelievers. 

Let us now see what this little body of Semites did at 
Ur. Anu was a God without a record and almost without 
a following; Hea was the God of the nether world; while 
El, our great solar orb, was the creator of all things. 
Why retain the other two? Of what use were they? And 
as for the other classes of divinities, they were countless. 
Why not accept and adore El as the sole God, even if 
we have to accept his consolidated name, Elohim? And 
so this little band conceived and promulgated the theory 
of a single God ; and as they had made him, why should 
he not become the God of this people — a special divinity, 
a tribal El? And as he became their God, so they became 
his children, the children of El. In the language of that 
country, to say that they were his children, was to say 
Isra-El. 

But there was another faction at Ur, which was at a 
later date called the children of Ab-Ram; although their 
early history is in doubt. If Ab-Ram, afterward called 
Abraham, was one of the mythological demigods of 
Elam who ruled the country for millions of years, then 
the matter explains itself by showing that the other fac- 
tion, though monotheists like the Israelites, simply chose 
another divinity in the place of El. 

If we can give any credence to Hebrew legends, the 
Abramites left Ur of the Chaldees for the land of Canaan 
about seven hundred years before Moses, or four hundred 



And Christian Mythology, 27 

and thirty years, according to Josephus. Whether they 
were driven out in consequence of their opinions and 
teachings of monotheism, or whether they left of their 
own yoHtion, must ever remain in doubt, for history is 
silent on this point. If we allow ourselves to speculate 
on probabilities, we may assume that their departure was 
voluntary, for although they were monotheists, they were 
not entirely weaned from the worship of the numerous 
Gods of the country, for they often relapsed into their 
old practices and offered up prayers to Anu, El, and Hea, 
and even to their household divinities. 

Semites Cross the Euphrates and Become Hebrews. 

Prior to the time of their migration to the west, these 
people were classed under the general head of Semites, 
but when they left their native country and crossed the 
Euphrates, they became emigrants. The term emigrant, in 
the language of that country, especially when applied to 
those who had crossed waters, was expressed by the word 
Hebrew. The word Hebrew, in their dialect, is the 
equivalent of emigrant in English; in other words, they 
are convertible terms. This people from that time, and 
in consequence of that act, became Hebrews. 

The biblical legends, treating Abraham as a man, make 
him stop at Haran for over two years. Haran was a large 
city, and the home of Sin, the moon God, who had a 
great temple there. The moon deity was a favorite in 
Chaldea, owing to the fact that the sun's heat in that 
dry, parched-up country made it necessary for most of the 
travel and much of the work to be performed at night, 
when the m.oon afTorded light without heat. 

What object could have induced the Abramites to 
tarry so long at Haran, the Mecca of the moon God, 



28 Commentaries on Hehrevi 

other than the worship of that divinity? That they did 
worship at that shrine we have ample evidence. After 
this long stay at Haran, the Abramites moved on to 
Cai:aan. 

The history of the Israelites from this time until their 
return from Egypt is very meager; in short, what is 
claimed as knowledge on this subject is little better than 
guess. Some few things, however, are quite well estab- 
lished, among which it may be said that they were a 
nomadic people, herding their flocks, and living on the 
milk and flesh of their animals. What Httle knowledge 
they possessed was confined to the priestly order. 

If we accept the bibHcal account of 430 years in Egypt, 
and 600 years in all, then this people remained in Canaan 
170 years. If we accept Josephus' account, the tin.e 
spent in Palestine was 215 years. 

From the foregoing we have learned that Ab-Ram, af- 
terward called, by the Hebrews, Abraham, was at an 
early date treated as one of the Gods of Elam, and we are 
also in possession of other facts tending to show 
that Abraham was the tribal God of the Abramites, after- 
ward known as Judaites, or the tribe of Judah. We have 
ample evidence that there were at Elam several peoples, 
or tribes, known as Semites, and that the tendency of all 
the Semitic peoples was toward monotheism, and that 
the tribe or clan which afterward became known as 
Lraelites, not only while in Elam and Chaldea, but for a 
long time thereafter and until the end of the reign of Sol- 
• -mon, continued to worship the Chaldean God, El. His- 
tory also informs us that about 2,000 B. C. the Abramites 
migrated from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan, 
but when the Israelites left Elam the records are silent. 
We first learn of that people in Canaan, where the Abram- 



And Christian Mythology, 29 

ites and the Israelites lived entirely separate, with noth- 
ing in common, other than that both were monotheists. 

We also learn that the two peoples went into Egypt at 
different times, each going by itself, and that they did not 
fraternize in the land of the Pharaohs ; we also learn that 
the Abramites, or at least their priests, on leaving Egypt 
cast off the God Ab-Ram and accepted the Egyptian 
lahveh. After their return to Canaan their history be- 
comes quite clear. The Israelites, worshipers of El, or 
Elohim, settled in the north, and the Abramites, former 
worshipers of Ab-Ram, now, at least so far as their 
priests were concerned, worshipers of lahveh, settled at 
the south, with Jerusalem as their capital. 

Mr. Renan et al inform us that during the reigns of 
David and Solomon, each tribe, or people, commenced 
to write up, from tradition, the stories of creation, of the 
flood and the history of Moses, and that the two peoples, 
or their priests, continued each to worship its own God 
until about the close of the reign of Solomon, when both 
agreed on lahveh or Jehovah, as the one divinity in the 
place and stead of Elohim and Ab-Ram. But the names, 
Jew for the tribe of Judah, and Israel for the worshipers 
of El, or Elohim, still remain distinct, being used indis- 
criminately for both peoples. 

The Hebrews Go into Egypt 

Renan says: "The first emigration of the Hebrews 
into Egypt was composed of the Beni-Israel ; which took 
place at two different times. The first division seems to 
have been on good terms with the Hittites of Egypt, 
while the bulk of the tribe remained on the best of terms 
with the Hittites of Heljron. The first division, which 
settled in Egypt, was called the clan of Josephel, or the 



30 Commentaries on Hebrew 

Beni-Joseph. The second lot, finding the Josephel He- 
brews well settled, followed and settled in the land of 
Goshen, but the different factions did not fraternize." 

This author informs us that the Hebrews at this time 
had no writings, and that it appears, from the most trust- 
worthy authority we have, that their sojourn in Egypt 
was only about one hundred years. As to the exodus, he 
concludes that it took place under Seti H; but w^e cannot 
accept these statements as true in the face of other evi- 
dence. The time spent in Canaan could not, according 
to some authorities, have exceeded one hundred years. 
Renan, one of our best authorities, fixes the time at one 
hundred years. This is probably predicated largely on 
natural increase and the small number of people who, at 
the date of the exodus, could have found support on the 
desert of Paran, even for as short a period as two years; 
but it will be seen that these statements do not support 
either the bibHcal account or Josephus ; for, according to 
the former, we have 700 years ; and by the latter, we have 
430 years. 

On this state of the evidence, we shall be forced to con- 
clude that no definite time can be fixed in either place. 

Egyptian Influence on the Hebrew. 

That the Hebrews while in Egypt adopted the religion 
and other practices of the Egyptians, seems to admit of 
no doubt. They worshiped Astata and lahveh, also 
Adoni, the sun God; they also joined the Egyptians in 
the worship of other local divinities ; but in these practices 
they did not forget Elohim, the sun God of Chaldea. 
They also adopted most of the religious ceremonies and 
customs of the people with whom they were located, as 
^ill be shown further on. These numerous divinities 



And Christian Mythology. 31 

continued to be worshiped by the Hebrews up to the 
time of Moses, when the priests attempted to substitute 
lahveh in conjunction with Elohim in the place and stead 
of all other deities, for they were not unmindful of the 
fact that their people, while in Egypt, had lost sight of 
the one-god theory in the worship of the numerous divin- 
ities of the Egyptians. As the great body of the Hebrews 
were extremely ignorant, it was no easy task of the 
priests to turn them from their newly-acquired idols, and 
this is fully illustrated by the fact that even Aaron, while 
at Sinai, set up the golden calf, the Apis bull of E^ypt, 
and the brazen serpent for his people to worship. Even 
up to the time of Rehoboam, the Egyptian with many of 
the Canaanite divinities were not only favorites of the 
people, but even of some of the priests of Israel. 

Hebrews as Herdsmen in Egypt 

The migration of the Hebrews from Canaan into 
Eg-ypt was owing to the drouth, and the failure to obtain 
feed for their cattle in Canaan, for the Jews were living in 
tents and moving from place to place with their herds in 
search of better pasture; they had obtained permission 
from the Egyptians to live and pasture their herds on the 
lowlands of the delta near the Mediterranean. They went 
there in two bodies at different times, Josephus says "sev- 
enty souls in all, and after two hundred and fifteen years 
they left the country with 800,000 men, besides women 
and children." If to this last number we add women and 
children, the whole number at the time of their exit out 
of Egypt, could not have been less than 3,000,000. This 
statement must be erroneous, for nearly all the Hebrews 
.of Canaan went into Egypt, and as they had resided in 
the former country for at least one or two hundred years. 



32 Commentaries on Hebrew 

their number must have far exceeded seventy souls; 
probably they numbered several thousands. And as to 
the statement that their number at the exodus was 800,- 
000 men, this must have been overdrawn, for, as they de- 
pended on the scanty products of the desert for subsis- 
tence, it is hardly to be credited that such a large army 
could have found sufficient food during the long stay in 

the desert. 

Hebrews as Nomads, 

Let it be remembered that the Hebrews, during all the 
period of time while in Chaldea, in Canaan, in Egypt, and 
long after their return to the promised land, remained a no- 
madic people, having no fixed abode, living in tents and on 
the milk and flesh of their animals, wandering from place 
to place, and from pasture to pasture, in search of feed 
for their stock. Rich in herds and in ignorance, the He- 
brews thus Hved in blissful simplicity, dreaming of a 
celestial paradise ruled over by a single God, our solar 
orb, under the consolidated name of Elohim, until ex- 
changed by Moses for Jehovah. Thus they continued 
to live for more than a thousand years after all the peo- 
ples and nations around them had reached a high state of 
civilization. 

Geology and history teach us that man passes through 
three stages of existence. First, he is a savage, a hunter, 
living on game and wild fruits. Second, from the savage 
state he passes into a barbarous or semi-civilized state, 
living on the milk and flesh of his herds, and wandering 
from place to place. Lastly, he emerges from his semj- 
savage, nomadic condition, becomes a tiller of the soil in 
a fixed home, living on the products of his own labor. It 
is only when he reaches this last step that he can be 
cla&sed as civilized. 



And Christian 3Iijiliology, 33 

All of the religions have had their birth with man in 
his first or second stage; for man, when civihzed, ac- 
counts for the various phenomena of nature on scientific 
principles, and thereby has no occasion to attribute such 
things to unknown beings. 

Moses and the Exodus, 

This brings us to the time or epoch when the name of 
Moses and the exodus appear on the scene of Hebrew 
mythology. And here the question is presented, Was 
Moses a real character, and the exodus a fact? or was it 
a mere fiction? It has been contended by writers whose 
statements are worthy of serious consideration, that 
Moses had no real existence. The Rev. A. H. Sayce, the 
archaeologist, in his work entitled ''Records of the 
Past," speaking of the Sun God of Chaldean mythology, 
says: "We learn from a Babylonian text, recently dis- 
covered in upper Egypt, that his (Moses') title was Mosu, 
the hero, a word which is letter for letter the same as the 
Hebrew Moshoh." He further says that this name dates 
back to Accadian cosmology, where Mosu (Moses) was 
deified as the sun God. The learned Huet, Vossius, 
Clark, and other writers give a long list of parallel acts of 
Moses and the Egyptian Bacchus, and assert that they 
were one and the same, and that the mythical Bacchus 
was the one. 

While Renan thinks that Moses had a real existence, 
he says: "The man has been buried beneath the legends 
that have grown up around him, until his real character 
is lost in an ocean of myths." This author says that no 
writings have been found concerning Moses which can 
be traced back to within 500 years after his death; that, 
according to the Thora, Moses led his men against the 



34: Commentaries on Hebrew 

Moabites; but that, in the Book of Wars of lahveh, he had 
disappeared before reaching this people. 

Manetho, in his Egyptian history, gives Moses a per- 
sonal existence, and informs us that the man's real name 
was Osarsiph, which was changed to Moses at the time he 
took his people out of Egypt. 

These authorities can be reconciled only on the hy- 
pothesis that the name Moses had a place, not only 
among the Gods of Chaldea, but also with the celestial 
beings of Egypt. Assuming such to be the case, this 
man had a reason for casting off the name of Osar- 
siph and assuming that of Moses, as he thereby became 
the divine ruler of his people; for a man who could suc- 
cessfully lead his people out of Egypt would find it an 
easy task to convince them that he was of divine origin. 
Times then were easy, when Gods were created with little 
difficulty, and with as little effort the multitude were in- 
duced to render homage. 

Josephus says, "Moses was appointed general, and 
with his army drove the Ethiopians out of Egypt;" but 
we must remember that Josephus derived most of his in- 
formation concerning Moses from Hebrew legends. We 
are told in biblical records that Moses, after being per- 
mitted to leave the country, gathered up the Israelites, 
600,000 men, besides the women and children, and with 
so vast a horde marched to the Red Sea, where with a 
small rod he divided the waters of that sea and passed 
through, and that the whole Egyptian army, attempting 
to follow them, was swallowed up. This is a remarkable 
story, hardly able to stand alone, when we take into con- 
sideration the fact that, at that time, the Egyptians kept 
full accounts of their wars and all other important events 
of their country, and that there has never been found 



And Christian Mythology, 35 

among the records or traditions of that people as much 
as a mention of the loss of the Egyptian army in the Red 
Sea. The biblical statement stands without support. All 
of this, when taken in connection with the Mosaic ex- 
ploits at Mount Sinai, and the numerous conversations, 
contracts, covenants, oaths, and conspiracies between 
him and Jehovah, as reported in the Hebrew writing, 
seems to warrant the conclusion that the whole record of 
his exploits is but a myth. Such were the teachings of 
the Rabbinical schools of Canaan 500 years after Moses' 
death. The biblical story of Moses' birth, that he was 
placed in a basket of rushes, put on the Nile, where 
he was picked up, and reared in the king's family, is so 
much like the Chaldean story and legend told of Sargon, 
who ruled Assyria 1600 B. C, that one can readily be- 
lieve the former was borrowed by the author of the He- 
brew account from the latter story. 

The Chaldean inscriptions, wherein Sargon tells his 
own story, read as follows: *'My mother was a princess; 
my father I did not know (nor did Moses). My mother 
placed me in an ark of rushes, with bitumen ; my exit she 
sealed up. She launched me on the river (Euphrates), 
which did not drown me. The river carried me to Akki ; 
the water it brought me. Akki, the water-carrier, in ten- 
derness of bowels lifted me. Akki, the water-carrier, as 
his child brought me up. Akki, the water-carrier, as his 
husbandman placed me." 

vSargon was an usurper, and ruled forty-five years. 
All of these things belong to the age of fables and m^lhs. 
There are also other circumstances in support of this the- 
ory, of too much signi^cance to be overlooked. If Moses 
was a man of so much importance as the Hebrew writ- 
ings make him to appear, it is hardly possible, or, at least, 



36 Commentaries on Hebrew 

it is not probable, that he would have so suddenly and un- 
ceremoniously dropped out of sight and forever disap- 
peared from history, after his Mount Sinai exploits, that 
the time, place, and manner of his death and burial should 
ever remain unknown. History does not deal in this way 
with great men; it follows them in detail down to the last 
moment of their lives, and then buries them amid the 
pomp and splendor of the multitude. 

The Hebrews from the Time 7 hey Went into Egypt 
Until the Captivity. 

The Hyksos. — A history of the departure of the chil- 
dren of Israel from Egypt would be hardly complete 
without some mention of the Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, 
as they were called, who were so closely allied to the He- 
brews in peace, in war, and in religion. Whether the 
Hyksos originally belonged to Arabia, Syria, Mesopo- 
tamia, or Bactria, are questions which must ever remain 
in doubt. Different authors have expressed diverse opin- 
ions on this point, all of which have been mere conject- 
ure, as there is little or no direct evidence on the point, 
beyond the character and features of that people ; but this 
much can, with reasonable certainty, be said of them, that 
they belonged to the Semitic branch of the Turanian fam- 
ily, or stock, and were monotheists. It is somewhat un- 
certain whether at an early date they were not a branch 
of the Hebrews. Josephus leans strongly to that opinion. 
When the Hyksos immigrated to Egypt is uncertain, but 
it must have been from two to four centuries before the 
tirst stock of Hebrews settled in that country, for on the 
entrance of the first division of the Hebrews into the 
delta, they found the Hyksos, not only settled in large 
numbers, but in full power in both lower and upper 



And Christian Mythology, 37 

Egypt. It was the Shepherd Kings, or Pharaohs, who 
permitted the Hebrews to settle tnere. Maiielho, an 
Egyptian high priest, and rehable historian, who wrote 
the history of Egypt from the time of Menu, the first 
king, down to his time, about the middle of the third cent- 
ury B. C, in speaking of the Hyksos, says that during 
the reign of Timaus, there came an invasion from the 
east, men of ignoble birth, who subdued the Egyptians, 
and set up a king of their own, whom they called Salatis, 
who made Memphis his home; that he rebuilt and forti- 
fied Avaris, and that he and his descendants ruled the 
country five hundred and eleven years ; that at the end of 
this time, upper and lower Egypt revolted, and with a 
great army, and after a long war, finally shut up the Hyk- 
sos in Avaris; that Timaus, not being able to take the 
city by force, allowed the Hyksos to take their families 
and depart; that they went into Syria and built a city 
which they called Jerusalem. It may be said here that 
there is nothing running counter to this statement of 
Manetho that the Elyksos built that city. The town was 
originally called Salem, and went by that name until the 
conquest of Canaan, when it fell into the hands of the 
Jews, after which it was called the Salem of the Jews, or 
Jews' Salem, and finally corrupted into Jerusalem. 

The Hebrews in Egypt 

At the risk of a little repetition, let it be said that the 
Hebrews went into Egypt from the land of Canaan in 
at least two divisions, and some considerable distance of 
time between them. The first installment, led by the 
Abramites, consisted of a small party, and some time there- 
after a much larger body of Israelites entered Egypt and 
were assigned lands in the delta for themselves and their 



38 Commentaries on Hebrew 

herds, for they were shepherds or herdsmen Hke the 
Hyksos, and were equally despised by the Egyptians, 
who looked on the roaming life of such people with con- 
tempt. The Hebrews were low and ignorant, forming a 
wide contrast to the highly civilized, cultivated, and re- 
fined Egyptians. It is no wonder that such a cultivated 
people looked down with contempt on a lot of herdsmen, 
a little above their cattle in the scale of advancement, but 
the Egyptians were not in power; as before stated, the 
country was under the dominion of the Hyksos, who, if 
they did not invite the Hebrews into the country, re- 
ceived them with open arms as friends and fellow-wor- 
shipers of a single deity. 

The Sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt, 

As before stated, the duration of the sojourn of the 
children of Israel in the land of the Pharaohs will never 
be setued, as there is a great diversity of opinion. 

Perhaps it may be safely said that a majority of the 
writers, basing their opinions on the genealogical table 
of the Levites, have fixed the sojourn at about two hun- 
dred and fifteen years, but they do not make this claim 
with much degree of certainty, owing to the dearth of 
evidence in support of their opinion. Bunsen, after a 
thorough research, concludes that they must have been 
in Egypt as much as fourteen centuries, and that they 
left the country in the reign of Menephthah, about 1320 
or 1 3 14 B. C. This author assumed, on the statements of 
the writer of the Torah, that the fighting force of the He- 
brews at the time of their exit was 600,000, to which add 
the old and the young and the women, and we have from 
two and a half to three millions, which is believed by 
many writers to be about the number who left the coun- 



And Christian Mythology. 39 

try. On this assumption Bunsen concludes that it would 
take at least fourteen centuries of natural increase to 
make this number, and this is the only reason put forth 
by him on which to base his conclusion. In order to 
agree with this author, we should be forced to accept his 
major premises, which we think to be unwarranted, in 
view of the well-known fact that the number who went 
into the country is unknown. 

The time when, Bunsen says, the Hebrews left the 
country, 1320 or 13 14, agrees with the time stated by 
]\Ianetho when they were driven out. The writer of Exo- 
dus (believed to be Ezra) says that the sojourn of the 
children of Israel in Egypt was 430 years, adding that 
they left the land the selfsame day on which they entered 
it. These two statements, so flatly contradicting each 
other, will hardly be taken as much authority, and if the 
author is no more reliable in other matters than in this, his 
statement that the Red Sea, at the command of Moses, 
opened up to allow his people to pass through, and then 
closed in on the Egyptian army, should receive little or 
no consideration whatever. 

As it required the suspension of a law of nature to 
work this alleged miracle, the intelligent reader of to-day 
will be inclined to reject the entire story as a fact, and as- 
sign to it a place among fables and myths. In the days of 
Josephus, even, the more enlightened Jews treated the 
miraculous part of the story with contempt, while it has 
become quite the fashion among the more advanced 
Christians of this time to explain away the miracle, by as- 
serting that the exit was across the marshes at the north 
end of the sea. This miracle has its parallel in the state- 
ment, just as well authenticated, that the Pamphylian Sea 
opened at the command of Alexander to allow his army 



40 Commentaries on Hebrew 

to cross it. Take away the miracle of the Red Sea, and 
with it falls the whole exodus story as told by its author, 
thereby leaving the children of Israel in the land of the 
Pharaohs, their exit to be explained in other ways. 

Manetho here comes to the rescue, with the only rea- 
sonable and plausible version of the problem, in which he 
is supported in both a negative and positive manner by 
the records of the country. It will be remembered that, 
as a historian of the third century B. C, he had access to 
all the records of Egypt. 

Before giving the statements of Manetho, it will be 
first in order of time to briefly sketch the opinions of a 
few of the numerous writers who have so laboriously 
delved into the question, to learn how wide and diverse 
their opinions are on the same subject-matter. If it were 
true, it would seem that there should be no difiference of 
opinion. If the exodus, as described in that book, be 
true, why there should be such a diversity of opinion as 
to the time of the occurrence of so important an event is a 
question that will be asked by all inquiring minds, to 
which there can be no ready answer. Following are the 
opinions of some of the numerous authors: 

Usher says, 'The exodus took place 1491 B. C.;" Hale 
says, 1648; Wilkinson fixes 1495 in the reign of 
Thothmes III; Bunsen says 1320 to 1314, in the reign of 
Menephtah; Prof. Lepsius gives the latter part of the 
19th dynasty; others run the dates from 2019 to 1300 B. 
C, and assert that the number of Hebrews that went out 
was about 3,250,000. 

Brugsch, in his "Egypt Under the Pharaohs," agrees 
with Bunsen that Menephtah was the Pharaoh of the 
exodus, succeeded by Seti II, who was followed by 
Menephtah III. 



And Christian Mythology. 41 

Maspero, a French author, places the exodus under 
Seti II., and says that during the i8th and 19th dynasties, 
monumental and papyrus-roll history was kept all over 
Egypt. 

Under Seti I and Rameses II, it is claimed that the 
Hebrews were oppressed. 

Josephus says the Hebrews went out of Egypt under 
the reign of Tethmosis, rendered by some Tethmus, by 
others, Ahmos or Amos, thus agreeing with Africanus, 
who says they went out under the reign of Amos. 

Some other writers do not agree with this, but assert 
that it was during the reign of Amos that the Hyksos 
went out. This cannot be correct, unless we admit that 
Amos was a monarch of the 17th dynasty, which has no 
evidence in its support, but on the contrary it appears 
that Amos belonged to the latter part of the i8th or the 
early part of the 19th dynasty. 

It may be said with propriety that much of the confu- 
sion here arises out of imperfect knowledge of rendering 
names, and the fact that dates under the chronological 
system of Egypt commence de novo with each Pharaoh. 
For instance, Thutmus is by Josephus rendered Teth- 
mosis; by Africanus, it is Amos, and by Eusebius, it is 
Amosis. 

McDonald, in his chronology, makes Thutmus I reign 
1356; Thutmus HI 1341; Ahmos, 1396; Amenhotep, 
1371; and Rameses, 1333 B. C. These dates fall within 
the 1 8th and 19th dynasties. 

Menephtah was on the throne about 131 5 B. C. Dur- 
ing his reign the country was invaded from the south by 
the Libyans, and at the same time by an African prince 
named Marmaiu, with a force of 30,000 warriors collected 
from five nations; joined to this force came a fleet of 10,000 



42 Commentaries on Hebrew 

mariners from Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor. After a 
desperate struggle the invaders were driven out of the 
country. This, says an historian, is the first marine war 
recorded in history. Full and complete accounts of it 
have been found on Egyptian monuments. It is claimed 
by several writers that the exodus took place almost im- 
mediately after this war. If, as stated in the Hebrew 
records, the Egyptian army was, in following the Jews, 
swallowed up in the Red Sea, it was a matter of too much 
importance to have escaped the chroniclers of that time, 
hence should have a place on the monuments. 

The exit of the Hebrews, according to the foregoing 
authorities, took place during the i8th or 19th dynasty, 
and probably not far from 1320 B. C. As to the evidence 
on this point, we have the statements as to the time of the 
exit, by the above authors, founded on the assumption 
that the event, as described by the author of the book of 
Exodus, was an established fact, leaving the question as 
to the truth of that statement untouched. It is the truth 
or falsity of that statement that is now at issue. On the 
one side we have the naked, unsupported statement or 
assertion of the author of the Hebrew Torah, the Greek 
Pentateuch, who is undoubtedly Ezra and his assistants, 
and his story founded on a miracle, handed down by tra- 
dition for nearly ten centuries before being reduced to 
writing. On the other side we have the negative and 
positive records of Egypt, and the history of IManethp, 
founded on a natural state of things. Ezra wrote his ver- 
sion, as we shall show further on, nearly a thousand years 
after the alleged event, and by his own statement it was 
written from memory ; while Manetho had the records of 
Egypt from which to write. 

It may be safely said that the i8th and 19th dynasties 



And Christian Mythology. 43 

cover the most brilliant and prosperous period in Egyp- 
tian history. In point of learning the Egyptians were in 
advance of any former or subsequent age in their his- 
tory. 

Ferguson, the Egyptologist and historian, says the 
i8th, 19th, and 20th dynasties cover the most brilliant 
period in Egyptian annals, i. e., that at no other time did 
the Egyptian chroniclers furnish so full and complete 
narratives of every event happening in their country. 
This author further says: "In refinement, learning, 
architecture, and luxuries, she had reached the pinnacle 
of fame; the writings included history, divinity, philoso- 
phy, correspondence, travels, novels, and legends." 

We might quote to the same purport from other au- 
thors, but as this is undisputed, further evidence is un- 
called for. In point of architecture, Rawlinson, the great 
historian, says: "The hall of Seti at Karnak is the great- 
est of man's architectural works, and the building to 
which it belongs is the noblest ever produced by the hand 
of man." Another writer says: "The architectures of 
Greece and Rome sink into insignificance as compared 
with that of Egypt." 

The monumental inscriptions and papyrus rolls, com- 
prising the records of that wonderful people, have sur- 
vived the elements of centuries, come down to our time, 
and been recently unearthed and deciphered. 

If the exodus, as described in the Pentateuch, had 
taken place as therein stated, and. the army of Egypt, 
while pursuing the Israelites, had been swallowed up in 
the waters of the Red Sea, is it possible that the records 
would have been silent on so disastrous a matter? The 
event would have been of too much importance to have 
been overlooked, especially when the laws of nature had 



\ 



4A Commentaries on Hebrew 

to be suspended in order to accomplish the salvation of 
the Israelites. It would seem that there can be but one 
answer to that question. Sir William Osburn, a 
thorough Egyptologist and hieroglyphist, after spending 
thirty years among the tombs, monuments, and ruins of 
Egypt, and having specially searched to find recorded evi- 
dence of the Hebrews, says, in his "Monumental History 
of Egypt," that he has failed to find any mention, or trace 
of any kind, bearing on or tending to sustain the biblical 
account of the exodus. We can hardly forbear quoting 
from Chevalier Bunsen, one of the ablest Egyptologists, 
who, in speaking of the biblical story of the exodus, says : 
"The barriers which Jewish superstition and Christian 
sloth have erected in the field of history, are forever 
broken down. Historical records and truth cannot be 
destroyed by the preposterous claims advanced by the 
clergy to fabricate history in order to bring us back to the 
dark ages." 

While it cannot in justice be claimed that the silence 
of the Egyptian records is conclusive proof against the 
Hebrew story of the exodus, we think it must in all 
fairness be admitted that it throws a cloud over that 
story. 

If the matter rested here, the story of the exodus as told 
by Ezra would remain an unsolved problem. But truth 
here comes to the rescue, with a smile on Its face, and 
introduces the reader to the great Egyptian historian, 
Manetho, and asks him, In his "History of Egypt," to tell 
us how ]\Toses and the children of Israel got out of the 
land of the Pharaohs. Hear what he has to say. Mane- 
tho says: "Amenophls (who was then on the throne) 
consulted the Gods as to how to get rid of the Hebrews. 
The advice was to drive them out of Egypt. The He- 



And Christian Mythology. 45 

brews asked the king that they be allowed to depart ; the 
king refused to grant their request, but sent them into the 
stone quarries; afterward, at their request, he allowed 
them to occupy Avaris, which had been desolate since 
the departure of the shepherds; among them there were 
several learned priests afHicted with leprosy; one of them, 
named Osarsiph, a priest of Heliopolis, they made their 
ruler; having fortified the city, Osarsiph incited an insur- 
rection against Amenophis, and sent to Jerusalem, to the 
formerly expelled shepherds, for aid; they responded 
with alacrity, and came to the assistance of Osarsiph, 
whose name was afterward changed to Moses." 

So far the statements of Manetho substantially agree 
with the Hebrew account. Manetho further says: 
"Amenophis, with his army, was compelled to flee into 
Ethiopia." This point is in substance supported by Jo- 
sephus. Manetho then proceeds to say: *'The Egyp- 
tians remained in Ethiopia for thirteen years ; during this 
time Osarsiph burned the towns and destroyed the im- 
ages of the Gods; after the thirteen years Amenophis re- 
turned to Egypt with a great army and drove these lep- 
rous and unclean people and their allies out of Egypt, to 
the borders of Syria." 

Leaving out the Red Sea miracle and some minor de- 
tails, the two accounts are not in substantial conflict. 
The Hebrews, finding themselves pushed to the borders 
of Syria, had to do one of two things: f:ght their way 
through the nation of Philistines, or turn back to the 
southeast of Mount Sinai. Josephus comes to our aid 
here, and says the Hebrews did attempt to pass through 
the Philistines and were driven back. 

Here apply the statements of the author of Exodus, 
who finds them at the base of Mount Sinai, and the whole 



46 Commentaries on Hebrew 

story of the exit is told without the intervention of a mir- 
acle, which was undoubtedly added by Ezra to embellish 
and round off the tale for the edification of the children of 
Israel, and make them believe that Jehovah was their 
protector. It may here be said that the monumental in- 
scriptions recently brought to light in Egypt fully sus- 
tain the historical accounts given by Manetho. 

The Hebrews at Mount Sinai were among their friends 
and in a country where they could procure food and 
water for themselves until such time as they could get 
ready to pass around that mount to the east of the Jordan 
and so enter the land of Canaan. The length of time 
which the Hebrews remained at Mount Sinai and on the 
desert of Paran must ever remain in doubt, for notwith- 
standing the Hebrew statement of forty years, no record 
of them is given beyond the Erst two years, during which, 
it is said, full details of their doings have been supplied. 
Goethe says that the period of forty years was but a 
mythical round number; that the real time was two 
years. Three, seven, twelve, and forty were favorite 
numbers among all the pagan nations, from whom they 
were undoubtedly borrowed by the Hebrews, and later 
by the Christians. The forty days of the flood, forty 
years in the wilderness, forty days on Mount Sinai, and 
the forty days of fasting are but borrowed myths. 

Renan says that the number of Hebrews who left 
Egypt must have been very small, as the desert country 
around Sinai is such that but a few people could have 
found support there ; that at the present time the country 
is peopled with a few hundred half-starved Bedouins. 

Before proceeding to consider the exploits of Moses 
at Mount Sinai, let it be remembered that the Hebrew 
populace had, in spite of their priests, during their long 



And Christian Mythology. 47 

stay in Egypt, accepted the religion of that country, to 
which they adhered up to the time of their release from 
Babylonian captivity, worshiping Horus, Ra, Turn, Aten, 
Apis, and other Egyptian divinities, in common with the 
principal divinities of Canaan. 

Moses and some of the other learned priests, while in 
Egypt, cast off Elohim, the plural of Anu, El, and Hea, 
and in its place substituted the name lahveh, afterward 
written Jahveh, or Jehovah ; that is, they exchanged the 
pagan divinity of the Chaldeans for the pagan divinity of 
the Egyptians. In proof of this we cite Williamson, who, 
in his ''History of Israel," says: "That Elohim w^as the 
divine name used by the Hebrews up to the time of 
Moses; that lahveh, or Jehovah, was the sacred name 
used by the Egyptian priests, has been proven from mon- 
umental inscriptions, and by Spencer, Marsham, Jabon- 
ski, Skinner, and other Egyptologists." 

Jehovah and the Hebrew Ritual Borrowed from Egypt, 

As a foundation or preliminary to this branch of the 
discussion, we quote from Rawhnson, who says that 
Amenhotep IV attempted to restore, in a modified form, 
the religion which Apepi had endeavored to institute, the 
worship of Aten, the sun God. Apepi attempted to turn 
the people from the worship of all the Gods except Set; 
that name being familiar to the people, he preferred it to 
lahveh, or Jehovah, which had been used by the priests 
from early times. The followers of Amenhotep were 
called disk worshipers. This author further says that 
the. forms of worship set up by the Israelites in the desert 
were the same as those of the disk worshipers, and that 
the sacred furniture and shewbread described in Exodus 
are the same as used in the worship of Aten. The God 



48 Commentaries on Helreiv 

Aten being looked upon by the Egyptian populace as 
the physical sun, as such they worshiped that orb. 

The Egyptians, like most other pagan nations, had 
their trinities; the sun, being one of them, rose as Horus, 
shone in mid-heavens as Ra, and set as Tum. These 
divinities were recognized as the three vital quahties and 
attributes centering in one supreme head, called by the 
priests Jehovah, the personification of the great solar orb. 
The Jehovah, sometimes represented as *T am," in Exo- 
dus, is the same as 'T am all that is," which has been 
found on the Egyptian monuments. 

From what has been here shown, there can be no doubt 
about the fact that Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews and 
Christians, is but a pagan deity borrowed from Egypt, 
whose pedigree runs back to Chaldea, to Elam, and to the 
city of Ur (the birthplace of the mythical Abraham), 
where he was adored as the great solar disk. This same 
divinity, first represented by the sun, has occupied one 
and three places, as one and three beings, all along the 
pagan line from 4000 years B. C. to the present time. 

In Elam and Chaldea he, as a trinity, was Anu, El, and 
Hea, united in Elohim; in India he is Brahma, Vishnu, 
and Siva, united in Trimurti ;in Persia he is Ahura, Gema, 
and Sosiosh, united in Ahura-Mazda ; in Egypt he is Ho- 
rus, Ra, and Tum, united in Jehovah; in Greece he is 
Osiris, Isis, and Orus, united in Zeus; in Scandinavia he 
is Odin, Vila, and Ve, united in Hel ; with the Christians 
he is Father, Son, and Ghost, united in Jehovah. 

Moses at Mount Sinai, 

The next that is heard of Moses and his people, ac- 
cording to biblical records, is at Mount Sinai. On the acts 
and doings at this place and epoch rest Hebrew and 
Christian mythology. 



And Christian Mythology. 49 

Mount Sinai, nearly 9,000 feet high, is the loftiest, most 
forbidding, and most desolate mountain in southwestern 
Asia. From base to summit it is destitute of vegetation; 
its formation is principally dark granite; its summit is 
often covered with glistening ice and snow; terrible 
storms gather around it; the thunder echoes at its base, 
while the lightning exposes to view its solitude. When all 
is quiet, the awful silence of its desolation is appalHng; 
the traveler, Josephus informs us, was afraid to stop there 
to feed his stock ; he shuddered at the very sound of his 
own footsteps. The Babylonians looked upon this 
mountain as the home of Anu, El, and Hea; and the chil- 
dren of Israel as the home of Elohim and Jehovah. 

The biblical writings represent the God of Israel on this 
mountain, surrounded by angels, riding on the wings of 
the wind and flames of fire, speaking in tones of thunder, 
and rending the cloudy veil to show himself in the light- 
ning. 

It is no wonder that Moses, in his flight from Egypt, 
selected this mountain as the place to talk with and pro- 
cure from Jehovah a code of laws for the government of 
the people of Israel. Here Moses met Jehovah in his 
own home, while the credulous, simple Hebrews consent- 
ed to wait at the foot of the mountain until their hero 
went up for the laws and commandments ; for they were 
afraid of this desolate mountain and the wrath of its 
monarch. 

Moses and his Laws. 

Now let us proceed to the discussion of the character 
of Moses and the sacred laws and commandments con- 
tained in the five books ascribed to him. 

On these writings, and their supposed divine author- 



50 Commentaries on Hebrew 

ship, hang the Hebrew and Christian rehgions. The He- 
brews and Christians have been taught to beheve, and 
they have beHeved as they were taught by their priests, 
that Moses wrote these laws at the command of Jehovah, 
or that Jehovah wrote them at the command of Moses, 
and that Moses brought these writings down out of 
Mount Sinai, put them in an ark where they were safely 
kept, and that they have been correctly translated into 
the various languages of Christendom. 

Now, if this be true, then these laws ought to be, not 
only good authority, but binding and conclusive on all 
of the world. On the other hand, if Moses did not get 
them in this way, or get them at all, but they were the 
writings of man, or men, as mere ordinary mortals, and 
were written long after the death of Moses, then they 
have, and of right should have, no force or efifect what- 
ever. Now, these are the questions which we propose to 
discuss. 

vSo far as the writings go, on their face, they, we be- 
lieve, purport to come through Moses. The writings re- 
cite, or inform us, that while in the wilderness the follow- 
ers of Moses became disheartened, and insisted on re- 
turning to Egypt; that they had become so clamorous 
that Moses, to appease them, promised that, if they would 
wait at the foot of the mountain, he would have a confer- 
ence with Jehovah, and he assured his people that Jehovah 
had often promised to conduct them safely out of the 
desert and into the land of Canaan. But they had become 
weary and disheartened, and refused to believe Moses, or 
to believe that his God was in the mountain at all. Moses 
finally persuaded them to wait at the foot of the moun- 
tain, when, according to the Bible, he took with him 
A^^ron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy elders, making 



A7id Christian Mythology. 51 

seventy-four in all, seventy-three exclusive of himself. 
When part the way up the mountain Jehovah appeared 
before them standing on a sapphire stone, and all the sev- 
enty-four saw him. After this Moses proceeded alone up 
into the mountain, waited six days, got the laws from 
Jehovah, stayed forty days longer, and then returned 
with the laws written or engraved on tablets of stone. 

Now, to say the least of it, this is a remarkable story, 
apparently contrary to natural laws, and contrary to all 
our experience, and it rests on the statement of Moses, 
unsupported by a single witness ; for not one of the seven- 
ty-three others has been produced or has offered to come 
forward to say one word in corroboration of the state- 
ment of Moses. The statement of Moses that the other 
seventy-three persons saw Jehovah, is not their state- 
ment, but his alone. Moses must have known that this 
statement was an unnatural one, and that his people 
would require all the evidence possible in its support, 
then why did he not call some one or all of the seventy- 
three persons to vouch in some way or manner for his 
story? The fact that he did not do so, or attempt to do 
so, would be, in this age of the world, conclusive evidence 
of the untruthfulness of the statement, even if made by a 
man of the highest character for truth and integrity. In 
this case Moses has not even this to back him, for accord- 
ing to the same authority, he was guilty of willful murder 
in Egypt, and also of entering into a conspiracy to cheat 
and defraud the Egyptian women of their jewelry. 

Even the followers of Moses did not believe his Mount 
Sinai story, for Aaron, while his brother was up in the 
mountain, set up a golden calf, the Apis bull of Egypt; 
and while in the desert the Hebrews continued the wor- 



52 Commentaries on Hehreio 

ship of the Egyptian divinities, notwithstanding the ex- 
ertions of the priests to turn them over to Jehovah. 

This continuous reHgious warfare between the priests 
and the populace did not cease on their return to Canaan ; 
they had lost the numerous Egyptian deities, and re- 
fused to accept Jehovah or the teachings of Moses and 
the other priests ; nor was it until the close of the Baby- 
lonian captivity that the priests, under the leadership of 
Ezra and Nehemiah, were able, in that land of captivity, 
to bring the Hebrews back to a quasi recognition of the 
power of Jehovah, as manifested through the priests of 
his chosen people. 

Contrary to the general belief of seventy years of cap- 
tivity, the records show but fifty, and this is the time now 
agreed on by numerous writers. It is conceded that Jeru- 
salem was destroyed and that the people were carried off 
by Nebuchadnezzar in the year 586 B. C. Cyrus, the 
Persian monarch, overthrew Babylon in the year 536 B. 
C, and no later than the following year the Jews were re- 
leased, when, it is said, some 40,000 of them, with some 
Levite priests, returned to Jerusalem. 

This argument is based on the theory that these sacred 
laws and commandments were of Mosaic origin. We do 
not propose to stop here, but to proceed and prove that 
neither of these five books, nor any part of the Old Testa- 
ment writings, came from Closes or from Jehovah, and 
that neither Moses nor Jehovah ever saw or heard of 
these writings ; in short, that Moses left no writings what- 
ever at the time of his death, but that the five books com- 
prising the Hebrew Thora, or Greek Pentateuch, gener- 
ally ascribed to Moses, were written nearly a thousand 
years after his death. 

It is said that Moses brought from Mount Sinai an 



And Christian Mythology. 53 

ark, meaning a box, containing at least the ten command- 
ments engraved on tablets. Biblical records assert that he 
carried this ark around in his nomadic wanderings and in 
his marauding expeditions; but there is no evidence that 
anyone ever saw the inside of that box, or ever heard 
what became of its contents. An able Egyptologist says 
that the Hebrews had no alphabet up to the time of their 
return to Canaan ; that Moses could not have written the 
Pentateuch in Egyptian characters, they being too un- 
wieldy for so extensive a work, hence he could not have 
been the author of those books. As to the laws of Moses, 
Brugsch, in his "History of Egypt," says that the author 
of the Pentateuch, in compiling his code of laws, did but 
translate into Hebrew the religious precepts that he 
found in Egypt. 

Origin of ttie Boolcs of Moses and Other Sacred WriU 
ings of the Hebrews. 

We have now reached the point as to the origin of the 
five books generally ascribed to Moses. 

This subject has been ably and thoroughly examined 
and discussed by numerous scholars and historians of 
every shade of opinion, from the radical Christian to the 
most ultra skeptic. In some of the minor details there is 
quite a diversity of opinion, some maintaining that the 
five books were written in whole and taken from tradition 
at the Babylonian captivity; while others assert that 
Moses and the early Hebrews left the substance of these 
books in different manuscripts; and still others assert 
that they were made up partly from fragmentary writings 
and traditions. But all of these authors agree that at least 
the first four books of the Pentateuch, and probably the 
fifth, in their present form, were first made known and 



54 Commentaries on Hebrew 

published in the world by Ezra and Nehemiah, about 445 
B. C, nearly 1,000 years after Moses. 

The Rev. McClintock, the writer in ''Cyclopedia of B. 
& E. L.," says that the authenticity of the Pentateuch was 
first called in question earl in the second century by the 
author of the "Clen:entine Homilies," who claimed that 
the law was given early to Moses, and reduced to writing 
after his death. Jerome denied it to be the work of 
Moses. Aben Ezra, of the Royal College of Paris, ex- 
pressed a similar opinion. Astruc, a professor in that 
school, was the first who discovered in the Pentateuch 
two distinct documents, the Elohist and the Jehovist. 
Spinoza disputed its generally accepted authorship, and 
attributed it in its present form to Ezra. A. T. Hart- 
mann, in his criticisms, maintains that the Pentateuch 
was made up of numerous fragments thrown loosely to- 
gether. A majority of the critics agree that it was com- 
posed of traditions and of numerous writings originating 
between the time of David or Josiah and the Babylonian 
captivity. 

Well might the Rev. McClintock exclaim: "The lan- 
guage of Christ and his apostles is such that the hypothe- 
sis of the Pentateuch not being the work of Moses must 
create a very painful feeling in the mind of every true and 
simple-hearted follower of Christ." In this opinion we 
most heartily concur, for, according to the four gospels, 
Christ and his apostles numerous times were made to as- 
sert, directly and by way of assumption, that Moses was 
the author of the Pentateuch. But this is not all, for all of 
the Hebrew and Christian writers and teachers have pro- 
claimed the same thing until quite recently, wdien criticism 
commenced its work of dissecting the authorship. What 
position does this place Christ and his disciples in ? Cer- 



And Christian 3Iythology. 55 

tainly in no other than their ignorance of a state of facts 
discovered by other men on examination of the books 
themselves; not very compHmentary on the intelHgence 
of a God and his inspired apostles. Dr. Davidson, in his 
"Introduction to the Old Testament/' in speaking of the 
five books ascribed to Moses, says: "There is little ex- 
ternal evidence for the Mosaic authorship, and what little 
there is does not stand the test of criticism." He further 
says : "The succeeding writers of the Old Testament do 
not confirm it; the objections derived from internal struct- 
ure are conclusive against the Mosaic authorship; va- 
rious contradictions are irreconcilable; the traces of a 
later date are convincing." He further says: "The nar- 
ratives of the Pentateuch are partly mythical and legend- 
ary. The miracles recorded are the exaggerations of a 
later age. Moses was not the first writer who penned 
parts of the national legends and history." 

Chambers says: "The early claims of Mosaic author- 
Khip of the Pentateuch have been generally abandoned." 
In this the latest authors concur. 

After Babylon had been captured by Cyrus, the Per- 
sian king, one of the first acts of this monarch was to 
issue an edict releasing the Jews from captivity, and per- 
mitting such of them as so desired, to return to Jerusa- 
lem. It is claimed that about 40,000 of them at once 
availed themselves of this privilege; but where did these 
40,000 come from? The Hebrews had been in captivity 
but fifty years, and the total number of captives taken 
from Jerusalem at the two sieges did not exceed 3,000. 
A few years thereafter, Ezra and Nehemiah, accom- 
panied by several elders, proceeded to Jerusalem, carry- 
ing with them the entire writings comprising the Penta- 
teuch and other sacred writings, and called together all 



56 ■ Oommenlaries on Hebrew 

the Israelites, when Ezra and Nehemiah occupied several 

days in reading these so-called Mosaic laws and com- 
mandments, including the account of the creation of the 
world, the fall of Adam, the flood, etc. After this read- 
ing, all the Hebrews took an oath to believe and obey 
these books as the works of Moses. 

Ezra ought to be good authority on this subject. He 
says, or is made to say, that he and others wrote these 
books during the Babylonian captivity. He further says, 
that all of the sacred writings of the Jews had been 
burned, and that he had undertaken to write all that had 
been done in the world from the beginning, and that he 
wrote from memory. 

Renan, in his third volume of "Israel," insists, with 
much force of argument and some evidence, that the gen- 
erally accepted opinion derived from three of the early 
fathers of the church, that Ezra wrote the whole of the 
Thora at Babylon from memory, cannot be maintained; 
he asserts that at the time of the destruction of the temple 
at the second siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the 
Hebrews carried with them into captivity fragments of 
the sacred writings, including the Thora, in an unfinished 
condition, and that from these fragments, and from mem- 
ory, the Thora and other scriptures were made. 

Whatever sacred writings the Hebrews then possessed 
were undoubtedly in the temple. There were no copies, 
for copying at that time among that people was not in 
vogue ; nor did the common people, who could not read, 
know anything about these writings except through the 
teachings of the priests ; and they cared less, for the}^ wor- 
shiped the pagan divinities around them, recognizing 
lahveh only when forced to do so by the priests. 

History informs us that, at the first siege, all of the 



And Christian Mythology. 57 

priests and other leading men were carried off, and that, 
at the second siege, when the temple was destroyed, there 
were none but the common people to carry into Baby- 
lon, who took no stock in these writings. Which ever 
version be true, the main fact that Moses did not write 
any of these books, and that even the fragments from 
which they were compiled or written had no existence 
for more than 500 years after Moses' death, stands out as 
conclusive against the alleged authorship by Moses. 

When a people migrate from one country to another, 
they carry with them the things which to them are the 
most valuable and sacred. 

To these people their most valuable and sacred things 
were their Gods, their religion, and their household uten- 
sils. The traditions of the Chaldeans concerning the cre- 
ation and the flood were household words with the priest- 
hood of Israel during all of the long period from their exit 
from Ur until the reign of David, when these writings 
were commenced; and, at least so far as the Pentateuch, 
the history of Moses, and some other writings are con- 
cerned, they were reduced to their present form during 
the Babylonian captivity, by Ezra et al. 

At the time of Ezra's writing these legends of creation, 
of Adam and Eve, of the garden and of the flood, they 
were already in second copy in the archives of Babylon, 
where Ezra undoubtedly had access to them to aid him 
in making up the books he carried back to Jerusalem. If 
Ezra palmed off on his less intelligent and confiding fol- 
lowers these mythical legends, as coming from Jehovah, 
or from Moses, it was only one among the numerous re- 
ligious frauds of his time. 

We will now offer in evidence some further proof of the 
authorship of these books. Renan informs us that the 



58 Commentaries on Hebrew 

Hebrews possessed no writings up to the time of David; 
that the history of that people prior to that time rested 
on tradition ; that during the reign of David and Solomoi; 
(about seventy years) some scraps of sacred history 
were written. Some sketches comprising the framework 
of the Pentateuch were made up from old Babylonian 
legends. It is quite apparent that at least a part of the 
tenth chapter of Genesis dates from Solomon's reign; 
that among the writings at this time appeared the legends 
of Chaldea and the mythical Abraham, also the life of 
Moses, but there are found no writings relating to the ex- 
ploits of Moses at Sinai; that the writings comprised in 
the Pentateuch, as purporting to have come from Jeho- 
vah on Mount Sinai, are of much later origin. The author 
says: "The populace, being mere children, were much 
edified by these stories; Christianity having restored a 
second childhood, the gospels were well adapted to fill 
the vacuum." In speaking of the oracles, the same author 
says: ''Divine manifestations were made principally 
through the prophets, this device having supplanted the 
old enigmatical machine, which replied Urim and Thum- 
mim. This device, or machine, worked on the rule of 
chance, like the throwing of dice, giving the answer in 
the affirmative or negative as the manifestation of the di- 
vine will." This author further says: 'Tt was believed 
that lahveh, having become disgusted with the machine 
plan, thought it more in keeping with his dignity and 
\nih the progress of the times to be heard through a class 
of men called prophets." 

Sacred history teaches us that all Gods are progressive, 
and inclined to keep pace with civilization when not held 
in check by their priests. As to this matter, Renan says: 
''Progress in religion may be made in two ways, either by 



And Christian Mythology. 59 

directly attacking a bad creed, by destroying or suppress- 
ing unworthy Gods, or by improving the special God, 
without changing his name, by gradually raising him to 
the type of an universal divinity." In this way, this au- 
thor says, "Jehovah became the absolute God, and the 
fatal name lahveh was suppressed by declaring it unpro- 
nounceable; that an idol, a false God, if there ever was 
one, has become through the steady action of an in- 
tense volition of the Hebrews, the only true God." 

In further speaking of the Hebrew writings, Renan 
tells us: "The life of Elijah, like the life of Christ, was 
particularly prolific in legends; Elijah and Isaac furnished 
the basis of Jewish, Christian, and Mussulman mytholo- 
gy; they were the great divine agents of Messiahism, the 
forerunner of celestial apparitions; and Elijah, like 
Christ, spent forty days in reaching Mount Horeb, where 
he beheld visions resembHng those of Moses at Mount 
Sinai; the foundation for the legends attributed to Moses 
had undoubtedly been reduced to writing by Elijah, or at 
least in his time; and Elijah and Elisha belong entirely to 
legends; the prophetism of the north not only created 
Elijah, it also created Moses, and the sacred history of 
Moses and the Thora were the starting-point for both 
Judaism and Christianity." The author further says: 
"The substance of the legends concerning the creation, of 
Adam and Eve, and of Moses, appear in the patriarchal 
legends and in the Book of the Wars of lahveh, but as 
writing was at that date little in use, and unknown to the 
populace, they remained content to rest on tradition." 
The discrepancies and contradictions in the sacred books 
are the result of dififerent minds reading tradition in dif- 
ferent ways. 

As to the Elohist and Jehovist versions, this author 



60 Commentaried on HebreiO 

says: "It is evident that they were written by two or more 
persons, the former at the north, the latter at Jerusalem; 
that the original documents did not bear the signatures 
of their authors ; that on inspection it is apparent that the 
different authors did not act in concert, and that an at- 
tempted blending was thereafter made by other persons, 
who attempted to retain the whole of the different ver- 
sions, to do which, it was found impossible to make them 
harmonize. Hence the jars, conflicts, and absurdities." 

This author says there is evidence that this first attempt 
to harmonize and compile took place in the time of Heze- 
kiah and under his supervision (about 825 or 800 B. C.) ; 
Hezekiah removed many useless repetitions, condensed 
and pruned ad libitum. 

Renan further informs us that while the two king- 
doms, Israel and Judah, held many traditions in com- 
mon, nevertheless after their separation under Reho- 
boam Jerusalem had documents unknown to Israel ; that 
neither the Elohist nor the Jehovist contained a devel- 
oped Thora; that the decalogue was written at Jerusa- 
lem, while the books of the covenant were written at the 
north ; that at this time, and probably as the result of this 
compilation, lahveh and Elohim became merged in one, 
the Jehovah of the Hebrews and Christians. We 
learn that the book of David was written not earlier than 
the captivity; some assert as late as 175 B. C. The book 
of Enoch, says Heinrich Ewald, was written at various 
times between 144 and 120 B. C, and compiled in the 
first half century before Christ. 

From this time all seems to undergo a change. Jehovah 
is not a new divinity; only a change of name has taken 
place. He is the same great solar orb of the Chaldeans 
and Egyptians; the same great divine being, in the form 



A7id Christian 3Iytliology. 61 

uf man, who held the torch and Hghted the children of 
Israel out of the accursed land of the Pharaohs ; the same 
who commanded the marauding Hebrew to invade the 
homes of the peaceful Canaanites. lahveh had by his 
intimate connection with the Hebrew priests acquired 
such an unenviable reputation, not only among the 
pagans, but with his own people, that a change became a 
necessity, and so, under the mild influence and the 
ready pen of the revisers of his divine laws, he was given 
the name of Jehovah, and under this appellation he soon 
became metamorphosed, and assumed jurisdiction over 
all the peoples and nations of the earth. He had turned 
over a new leaf; a new history was to be written; a reign 
of humanity was to be inaugurated; peace on earth, at 
least so far as this ruler was concerned, had commenced. 
The wars of the Israelites thereafter were their wars, in 
which lahveh, now Jehovah, took no part; good-will to 
all mankind was the order from heaven ; a new Jerusalem 
in which were to be gathered all the nations of the earth 
had by the prophets been foretold, and the new Jerusalem 
was to be ruled over by a descendant of the house of 
David, who, according to the Sadducees, was to be its po- 
litical king, but according to the Pharisees, was to become 
a spiritual ruler. Between these two factions strife was 
engendered; amid the turmoil a ]\Iessiah was ushered in, 
a church was established, and priests were created, who 
took charge and assumed control over this new divinity, 
and led him from the path of virtue into vice. A relapse 
set in when Jehovah became the unwilling instrument in 
the hands of fiends to persecute, torture, burn, and kill 
those of his people who did not believe that their God had 
a son, and that son a virgin mother. 

Under the direction of the Father and Son, war con- 



62 Commentaries on Hebrew 

tinued by the priests for more than a thousand years. 
When outraged humanity could endure it no longer, the 
people declared for a better God and a higher order of 
humanity. Luther and Calvin came to the rescue, but 
they, too, were intolerant, urging Jehovah to continue his 
persecutions. Then science came to the surface, and de- 
creed all Gods to be myths. 

Now let us return and make further proof as to the 
origin of these scriptures. Hengstenberg, in his disser- 
tations on the Pentateuch, says that the five books bear 
unmistakable evidence of being the work of many 
authors, and written at different times; and he quotes 
Ezra, who says that he, with the aid of five persons, wrote 
these books in forty days. It will be remembered that 
Ezra wrote or compiled these books at Babylon, about 
T,ooo years after the death of Moses. 

Francois Lenormant, a firm Christian, and one of the 
greatest archaeologists, in his work entitled, ''Beginnings 
of History," says: ''I find myself compelled to yield to 
evidence that the books of the Pentateuch (the Elohist 
and Jehovist) are not the writings of Moses, nor of any 
one man; the Jehovist is not the oldest, and this is now 
admitted among the highest English and German schol- 
ars, Protestant and Catholic. And at least the first four 
books of the Pentateuch, as we now have them, do not 
date further back than the captivity. That which we 
read in the first chapters of Genesis is not an account 
dictated by God, but it is a tradition, whose origin is lost 
in the night of the remotest ages, and which all of the 
great nations of Western Asia possessed in common, 
with some variations." He further says: "The very form 
given in the Bible is so closely related to that which has 
been lately discovered in Babylon and Chaldea, it fol- 



And Christian Mythology. 63 

lows so exactly the same course, that it is quite impos- 
sible for me to doubt any longer that it has the same 
origin. The family of Abraham carried this tradition 
with it in the migration from Ur of the Chaldees into 
Palestine, and even then it was doubtless already fixed in 
writing, or in oral form." 

This author further says : "The Hebrew Genesis is from 
at least two distinct sources, written at different times, 
and by at least two persons." 

It will be seen on examination that these Mosaic ac- 
counts conflict on various points ; two different stories of 
creation are given. 

The Mosaic legends of creation, the first man, his fall, 
the serpent, the garden of Eden, the flaming sword, and 
the account of the flood have their parallels. Similar 
legends existed from the Nile to the Indus long before the 
days of Moses, as will be shown further on. 

The Rev. A. H. Sayce, who has devoted a great amount 
of time to archaeology, and especially to the Assyrio- 
Babylonian inscriptions, in his work entitled ''Records 
of the Past," in speaking of the legends of creation con- 
tained in the Chaldean and Mosaic accounts, says: *Tn 
each case the history of creation is divided into seven suc- 
cessive acts, and the words in each case are substantially 
the same. The world has been preceded by a watery 
chaos, and the order of creation agrees in the two ac- 
counts." This is also true of the accounts given in Hindu 
and Persian mythology. 

Draper, in his work entitled ''Conflict of Science and 
Religion," says: "The Mosaic account of the creation and 
the flood was borrowed from the Chaldean legends." 

The sacred writings of Zoroaster, which are at least 
i.Soo years older than Christ, and 400 vears older thar\ 



64 Commentaries on Hebrew 

]^/roses, contain the accounts of the creation of the world, 
of the fall of man, and a flood with an ark and a saved 
family. 

Mr. F. C. Cook, a firm Christian, in his book entitled 
"Origin of Religion," in comparing the account given in 
the book of Genesis with the account given in 
the Zend-Avesta, of the creation and flood, reluctantly 
says: "It does not matter whether these accounts were 
given by direct revelation to Moses, or whether the writer 
recorded faithfully and loyally the old traditions of the 
human race." 

Professor Lenormant, in speaking on this subject with 
a \iew of sustaining his Christian religion, says that al- 
though the Chaldean legends from which the Mosaic ac- 
count was copied were a myth, the fact that they (the old 
m^'ths) were copied by inspired writers, makes the ac- 
count become spiritual, and so, true. According to the 
reasoning of this author, the copying of a legend and 
myth by a Christian converts myth into truth. This is 
strictly in accord with Christian reasoning, i. e., a lie told 
by a Christian is thereby converted into a truth. 

In the Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesi- 
astical Literature, published, in 1883, by McClintock & 
Strong, we are told by the pious Rev. McClintock, or, in 
other words, he reluctantly admits, that the Old Testa- 
ment was written by Ezra and Nehemiah ; and that it re- 
ceived accessions for many years after their death until 
the time of the Maccabees. He further says that the 
combined evidence of tradition and the general course of 
Jewish history lead to the conclusion that the Canon, in 
its present shape, was formed gradually, beginning with 
Ezra, and continuing through the Persian period down to 
322 B. C 



And Christian 3Iytliology. ^^ 

If this writer had told the full truth, he would have 
added that there is abundant evidence showing that the 
Hebraic-Chaldean writings, comprising the Pentateuch 
and much of the other sacred writings of the Hebrews, 
were taken from the Chaldean legends, but, as the clergy 
have been engaged for more than i, 800 years in propagat- 
ing a gigantic falsehood, it would be too much to expect 
of human nature to believe them capable of at once re- 
versing their whole lives by telling the whole truth so re- 
cently by them learned. 

Modern Judaism, 

The address delivered at the religious congress, at the 
late World's Fair, held at Chicago, by Rabbi S. H. Sonne- 
schein, contains the modern ideas held by the Hebrews. 
Among other things, the speaker said: ''The synagogue 
of to-day is undergoing great changes ; it is represented 
by three different schools. The orthodox branch is still 
in Egypt, under the ban of the Talmud, which is now but 
a stagnant pool, a walled-in theology, feeding on the 
crumbs of the antiquated past. At the other extreme 
camps the radical school, whose leaders and followers are 
disciples of the modern agnostic philosophy and exe- 
cutors of the modern ruthless Bible criticism, with their 
Cod in the nebulous life-force of the cosmos, the concen- 
trated intelligence of organized atoms and cells of natural 
law ; with them holy writ is an antiquated literature, Abra- 
ham a myth, Moses a romance, and Judaism a phenix, 
which in order to live must first sacrifice itself upon the 
altar of self-cremation." 



66 Commentaries on Hebrew 

Origin of t/ie Sabbatli. 

Let it be remembered that Hebrews and Christians 
have ever claimed that Sunday, or, as they call it, the Sab- 
bath, had its origin with the children of Israel. Nothing 
can be further from the truth. This claim of course rests 
on the Hebrew Bible. In the book of Exodus, xx, ii, 
the origin of the week of seven days is made to rest on the 
alleged Jehovistic story of the creation of the world ; while 
in Deuteronomy, v, 15, the claim is made that the week, 
with its Sabbath, had its origin with the exodus of the 
Jews out of Egypt; thus raising a conflict in the claim- 
ant's own family. On this claim the Sabbath, or Sunday, 
has been treated as a sacred day, and its observance as 
such has, by custom and by law, been enforced in all 
Christian countries. If this claim of the Hebrews and 
Christians cannot be proven, then the sacred character of 
the day cannot be sustained. It will be observed, on 
further research, that the so-called Mosaic account ot 
creation, in treating of this day, does not, even on its face, 
purport to establish or inaugurate the Sabbath, for i1 
reads, ''Remember the Sabbath," etc., treating it as an 
already established institution. 

According to the latest and most reliable historical 
evidence we have on this subject, the Sunday, the day set 
apart for the worship of the sun, had its source or origin 
with the Accadian astrologers, more than 2,000 years be- 
fore Moses. This people at that early date were not only 
versed in astrology, but they had some knowledge of as- 
tronomy; they recognized our solar system, the relation 
of the planets to each other, their revolutions, including 
the revolution of our earth around the sun; but they knew 
nothing of Uranus or Neptune. They were familiar with 



And Christian Mythology, 67 

the legends of the creation of the world, if they were not 
the real authors of them. 

At a later date these legends were held in common 
among all of the Oriental nations. As to the mythical 
six days of creation, and the Sunday, or day of rest, Mr. 
Blake, in his "History of the Heavens," says: "The Ac- 
cadians, or Elamites, seem to be the authors of the 
legends of creation, the six days' work, and rest on the 
seventh; they determined the solar year, divided it into 
twelve months, and into weeks of seven days." 

Neptune and Uranus, as before stated, not having been 
discovered by this people, they named the seven known 
planets, and called the days of the week after them : Sun- 
day for the sun, Monday for the moon, Tuesday for Mars, 
Wednesday for Mercury, Thursday for Jupiter, Friday for 
Venus, and Saturday for Saturn. To the six planets, as 
Gods, the Accadians ascribed the creation of the world, 
each planet performing its or his part of the work. The 
work having been completed on the sixth day, these 
planetary divinities rested on the seventh, celebrated their 
work, and offered up prayers and sacrifices to the sun, the 
greatest of all the Gods, thereby laying the foundation for 
keeping this day sacred in honor of the sun. 

These legends, having been handed down from the Ac- 
cadians to the Chaldeans, the Assyrians, and the Egyp- 
tians, were by the authors of the Thora taken from Egypt 
ana adopted into the religious system of the Hebrews. 
The Egyptians kaving commenced their week on Sun- 
d:<y, their Sabbath fell on Saturday. This was strictly fol- 
lowed by the Hebrews. 

The Brahmans adopted the same system, but com- 
menced their week on the day of Venus, Friday. 

The Hebrews and, later, the Christians, in their system 



68 Commentaries on Hehrew 

oi borrowing, copied the word Sabbath, which was the 
term used in Chaldea, Assyria, and Egypt. The He- 
brews recognizing but one divine being, and having con- 
solidated these seven divinities into one, Elohim, after- 
ward called Jehovah, they in their borrowed legends as- 
signed to him the whole task of creation, following the 
same order, using the same names, and occupying the 
same time as in the Accadian legends. 

Strict observance of the Sabbath was enforced by the 
laws of Elam, Chaldea, Babylon, and Assyria thousands 
of years before Moses, as has been proven from the in- 
scriptions taken out of the ruins of the cities of those 
countries. Cooking, washing, cleaning of clothes, offer- 
ing sacrifices, riding, pubHc speaking, cursing, and even 
taking medicine, were all prohibited on the Sabbath day. 
Apply this rule, and our clergymen would have to close 
their churches on Sunday. 

As to borrowing this Sabbath from the pagans, Jo- 
sephus, Philo, and Juleus Clemens all admit, yes, they 
boldly assert, that the Sabbath did not originate with the 
Hebrews, but that it was in common use among all the 
Oriental nations. 

Dion Cassius, the Roman senator and historian, says: 
"The Egyptians were well acquainted with the true revo- 
lution of the planets, including the earth, more than 2,000 
years B. C; they divided the year into months and into 
weeks of seven days; named the days after the seven 
planets, beginning their week with Sunday. The He- 
brews borrowed their week and Sabbath from the 
Egyptians, and so their Sabbath fell on Saturday." 

As to the Christians, in the fourth century they ignored 
the Jewish Sabbath, and substituted the Roman Sun-day. 
The observance of this day having fallen into disuse, both 



And Ghristian Mtjthology. 69 

the pagans and Christians clamored for its restoration ; to 
appease both parties, Constantine, while yet a pagan, 
issued an edict in the year 321, which reads as follows: 
*'0n the venerable day of the Sun, let the magistrates and 
people, residing in the cities rest, and let all workshops be 
closed." 

It will be remembered that the venerable day of the 
Sun was the day set apart by pagan Rome for the wor- 
ship of Apollo, and called the venerable Sun-day, the day 
for worshiping the Sun God. 

In both the original and borrowed legends, the creators 
got tired and rested on the seventh day, or day of the Sun. 
This sacred seventh day of the Accadians, as handed 
down to posterity, has ever been observed as a day of rest 
and praise of the great luminary. 

As before stated, this venerable seventh day, with its 
observances, was adopted by the early Christians, just as 
leceived from the Jews, and was retained to the time of 
Constantine, who changed it from the seventh to the first 
day of the week in accordance with the custom of Rome; 
since which time the venerable day of the Sun of pagan 
Rome has been incorporated into the religious systems of 
all Christendom. 

The Christian priests and clergymen are terribly in ear- 
nest in their clamor for the observance of this pagan Sun- 
day, for it is on this venerable "Sabbath" day that 'The 
sly mountebank attends his trade, harangues the rabble, 
and is better paid." 

Chaldean Legends of Creation, 

This brings us down to the proper place for comparing 
the Chaldean and Mosaic accounts of creation. The in- 
scriptions on the Assyrio-Babylonian tablets, as found 



70 Commentaries on Hebreio 

among the ruins, were so much mutilated that only parts 
of the legends remained perfect; but enough was found to 
show a story substantially like the one contained in the 
Mosaic records. The inscriptions on the first tablet 
speak of the existence of the Gods before the creation, 
and then say, that in the beginning all was void; that the 
heavens had not been raised, that the abyss had not 
broken its foundations. The Gods then say, *'Let there 
be made earth for the dwelling of man, that he may have 
dominion over all created things, and let the heavens be 
made." The account on the second, third, and fourth 
tablets shows that a firmament was made and called 
heaven; that the waters were divided from the land; that 
the Gods commanded the earth to bring forth all kinds of 
vegetation, and that each kind should produce its kind. 
The account on the fifth tablet says, 'The Gods arranged 
the stars in the heavens to shine, and they fixed the years ; 
the moon was made to light the night ; the sun to rise in 
the east and go in his course." The account on the sixth 
tablet says, "The Gods created the monsters of the sea, 
the beasts of the field, birds of the air, and all creeping 
things, and commanded each to produce after its own 
kind, and they were sent forth to multiply." 

Then follows the creation of man, called Admi, or 
Adami, meaning man in general, and being used as sym- 
bolical of earth. 

It will be remembered that the Mosaic account treats 
Adam, or speaks of him, in both characters. In some 
places he is spoken of as a man, or the man, while in other 
places in the same account he is referred to as man, man- 
kind in general. These Chaldean legends say that man 
Vx^as created pure; that the Gods breathed the breath of 
l?.fe into him, and commanded him to serve the Gods. 



A^id Christian Mythology. 71 

Then follows a command to woman to obey her husband. 
The account then proceeds to say that the dragon (ser- 
pent) led man to sin and to know good from evil ; that in 
consequence of his disobedience the Gods drove him out 
of Canduiya, a land watered by four rivers, naming the 
Euphrates as one of them. The sacred grove Anu was 
then guarded by a sword, turned to the four points of the 
compass. The Gods then pronounced a curse on Admi 
and his issue, and threatened to destroy his seed; the 
diagon is also cursed. 

At the beginning of each tablet, covering a series of 
acts, the Gods express satisfaction and pleasure in the 
preceding work; while in the Mosaic account the same 
satisfaction is expressed at the close of each act, or day's 
work. On one of the tablets is a cut or drawing, repre- 
senting a tree with fruit on it, a woman on one side of it, 
with a serpent behind her, and a man on the other side ; 
the woman is in the act of plucking the fruit with an out- 
stretched hand. 

Mosaic Legends of Creation, 

As the Mosaic account is accessible to all, we here give 
only its substance. 

In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth, 
which were without form, and darkness was on the face 
of the deep. Light was then created, and divided from 
the darkness. The hght was called day, and the darkness 
night. On the second day, the firmament was made and 
called heaven. On the third day, the waters and land 
were separated, the land called earth and the water sea; 
the earth was commanded to produce grass, herbs, and 
fruit, each producing its own kind. On the fourth day, 
God created light in the firmament.and said Let there be 



?2 Commentaries on Hehreio 

signs, seasons, and years. Two great lights were then 
made, and set in the firmament, the sun to rule the day, 
the moon the night. On the fifth day, the waters were 
commanded to produce living creatures and fowls, each 
to produce its kind. On the sixth day, man was made 
and given dominion over all creation. At the end of each 
day, God expressed himself satisfied with his work. 

The account then goes on and says man was made out 
of dust, and life breathed into him. Man was then put 
into a garden, watered by four rivers, called Pison, Gihon, 
Hiddekel, and Euphrates, and forbidden to eat certain 
fruit. The man was called Adam, and given a wife called 
Eve; she was commanded to obey her husband. The ac- 
count goes on to show that the forbidden fruit was eaten, 
in coni,equence of which the pair were driven from the 
garden, and a flaming sword placed at the gate, turned to 
the four points of the compass. 

The terms Adam and Eve, in the Chaldean dialect, 
w^ere symbolical of earth and water, the source of all life. 

It will be observed that the scenes in both the Chaldean 
and the Mosaic accounts were placed or laid in the valley 
of the Euphrates. 

The Chaldean Flood Legend, 

As the tablets containing the Chaldean account of a 
flood were found in an almost perfect condition, we shall 
be able to give a more full account of this afifair than we 
have given of the creation. 

The name of the hero of the flood is given as Izdubar. 
While it is said Moses got his account from Jehovah, Iz- 
dubar gets his from Hasisadra, the man who was saved in 
the ark. The tablets on which these legends were in- 
scribed are characterized as the Izdubar series, by George 



And Christian BIythology, 73 

Smith, the author of two books, entitled ''Assyrian Dis- 
coveries" and ''Chaldean Genesis." The Izdubar series, 
as found, is a copy made from a former copy ; which sec- 
ond copy dates back at least 2,000 years before Christ, 
and 600 years before Moses. How old the original was 
ran only be a matter of conjecture. 

After lying in the British Museum for years as mere 
curiosities, Grotefend finally found the key, and with it 
unlocked the storehouse, deciphered the cuneiform 
characters, and gave to the world a library of ancient 
knowledge; among which were found the legends and 
myths from which Ezra copied, and palmed of¥ as of 
Mosaic origin, the stories of the creation and the flood. 
Credit is due to Mr. Young for deciphering the hiero- 
glyphics on the Egyptian monuments. The story runs 
that Izdubar derived his descent from the Gods; that he 
was a great king, and ruled at Babylon over the cities of 
Akkad, Erech, Calah, and Nibur in the land of Shinar. 

The biblical account makes Nimrod rule over the same 
cities in the land of Shinar. Izdubar and Nimrod are be- 
lieved by Mr. Smith and other writers on this subject to 
be one and the same person. Izdubar, like Nimrod, was 
a great hunter, for in those days it was the custom of the 
king to hunt wild beasts, especially the lion. Heabani, a 
seer, desirous of testing the king's strength, brought him 
a Hon, which Izdubar at once, Hke Samson, slew; and now 
the king and Heabani become great friends and hunt to- 
gether. Kusu, representing the sun, was the father of 
Izdubar, and the Bible says that Kusu was the father of 
Nimrod, who was a Cushite, and that he built Nineveh, 
Calah, and Resen. Josephus says Nimrod caused the 
tower of Babel to be built. Some writers place Nimrod 
at the time of Abraham. Africanus and Eusebius carry 



74 Commentaries wi Hehrev) 

him back to the flood. Sir Henry RawHnson says that 
Nergal was Nimrod deified. Rev. A. H. Sayce thinks 
that Nimrod was the Babylonian God, Marodah; while 
the decipherers of the cuneiform characters say that Iz- 
dubar was none other than the Nimrod of the Bible. 

The Chaldean legends go on and say, Izdubar had a 
dream, that he called on his friend Heabani to interpret it. 
The Goddess Ishtar fell in love with Izdubar, and offered 
hmi her hand and kingdom, which he rejected, at which 
she became enraged, and applied to her father, the God 
Hea, to avenge the insult. Hea espoused her cause, 
and sent a bull to destroy Izdubar. Izdubar and his 
friend Heabani slay the beast. Ishtar, in despair, de- 
scends into Hades to invoke the powers of darkness on 
the head of the king. In her descent she has to pass 
through seven ponderous iron gates; at the first she 
finds a guard, who refuses to allow her to pass, alleging 
that no one has ever passed there except through the 
shadow of death. Ishtar becomes enraged and threatens 
to break down the gate. The keeper, alarmed, consents 
to open the gate, but requires the Goddess to leave the 
jewels of her crown. She throws them at his feet and 
passes to the second gate, where she has the same experi- 
ence, and there further disrobes herself. In this way she 
passes the seven gates, at each further disrobing herself. 
She now reaches Hades, and appears before the Prince of 
Darkness in all her natural loveliness. The Demons 
tremble at her power, and a messenger is sent from Hades 
to the realms of light, to implore the aid of the great God ; 
Hea heeds the invocation, and calls Ishtar back to earth. 
Heabani is now killed, and Izdubar mourns his loss, aban- 
dons his kingdom, takes a ship and a pilot, and crosses 
the sea in search of Hasisadra, wdio, after leaving the ark, 



Jnd Christian Mythology. 76 

was translated (like Enoch) to the home of the great 
Gods. Having learned the road to the realm where 
dwells Hasisadra, Izdubar crosses a barren waste of sand 
lo an oasis, where there are trees bearing jewels. Here 
Izdubar meets two beautiful women named Sidura and 
Sabitu, with whom he wanders until he meets Urhamsi, a 
boatman, when the two sail through the realms of death, 
and there meet Ragma, who inquires after Heabani. 
Here Hasisadra appears and tells to Izdubar the story of 
the deluge. 

Hasisadra* s Story of the Deluge. 

The story being a very long one, we give only its sub- 
stance, which is as follows : 

Hasisadra then said that while he was on the earth the 
God Hea told him that the people had become so wicked 
that he would bring a great flood on the earth, destroy all 
mankind and all living things; that he, Hasisadra, should 
build a ship six hundred cubits long and sixty cubits in 
w'dth, and into the deep launch it; Hasisadra said to Hea, 
the people, old and young, will deride me. Hea then said 
to Hasisadra, say to them that they have turned from me, 
go into the ship, take thy food, thy goods, thy women 
servants, the female slaves, and the young men; the birds of 
the air and animals of the field, I will furnish to you. 
Hasisadra then told Izdubar that he built the ship, that its 
c'rcuit w^as fourteen measures, that he roofed and en- 
cased it, that he rode in it on the sixth time, that he exam- 
ined its exterior on the seventh time, and its interior on 
the eighth time. Hea said, planks against the waters I 
place, I repaired the rents, three measures of bitumen I 
placed over the sides; I then collected food and all was 
ready. I brought into the ship all of my male and female 



76 Commentaries on Hebreio 

servants, and the animals of the field. Hea then told me 
that he would send the flood in the night. 

Hasisadra then went on and said to Izdubar: I entered 
Ihe ship and closed it up, and it rained, as Hea had told 
me, until the flood reached the heavens, and all life was 
destroyed on the earth, and during the rain the Gods in 
heaven wept. Hasisadra then said to Izdubar, six days 
and nights passed, the wind, deluge, and storm over- 
whelmed the earth, and on the seventh day the storm in 
its course was calmed. The storm and all the deluge 
which had destroyed life on the earth was quieted and the 
deluge ended. 

Hasisadra further said to Izdubar: Corpses of men 
floated on the water, and I opened the window, and the 
light broke over my face, and I sat down and wept; over 
my face flowed my tears ; I saw the shore as the boundary 
of the sea; for twelve measures the land rose; to the coun- 
try of Nizer went the ship; the fifth and sixth day the 
mountains of Nizer the same; on the seventh day I sent 
forth a dove, it found no resting-place and returned; I 
then sent forth a swallow, and it finding no resting-place 
returned; I sent forth a raven, it saw the decrease of the 
waters and never returned ; I sent the animals forth to the 
four winds ; I poured out libations ; I built an altar on the 
peak of the mountain ; I built a fire and sacrificed to the 
Gods, who gathered over its sweet savor. 

Then follows a long talk between the Gods Hea and El, 
and a covenant not to flood the earth again. The ac- 
count then goes on to say that after Hasisadra had sacri- 
ficed, the other people came out of the ship, and when 
they could not see Hasisadra they called aloud for him; 
they heard his voice in the clouds telling them to worship 
the Gods. 



And Christian Mythology. 77 

Then follows a long conversation between the Gods, 
Hasisadra and Izdubar, closing by Hasisadra telling 
Izdubar to return to his country; Izdubar then in com- 
pany with Urhamsi, the boatman, returns to Erech. 
Finding the city destroyed he wept and commenced to re- 
build it. 

The Biblical Flood. 

The Mosaic account of the flood is much shorter than 
the Chaldean legend. It commences by saying that God 
repented he made man, and he threatened to destroy him 
and every living thing on earth ; he told Noah to build an 
ark, 300 cubits long, 50 wide, and 30 high, put a window 
in the top, and a door in the side; that Noah should go 
into the ark with his sons and their wives, take a pair of all 
animals to save the seed, food for all, and at the end of 
seven days it should rain and continue to rain forty days 
and nights. The account says Noah did as commanded; 
that it did rain forty days and nights, and all living creat- 
ures were destroyed except those in the ark; that the 
waters lasted one hundred and fifty days, then abated, and 
the ark rested on Mount Ararat ; that at the end of forty 
days Noah opened the window and sent forth a dove, 
which finding no place to rest, returned; at the end of 
seven days he sent forth another dove, which returned 
with an olive leaf; and at the end of seven days more he 
sent forth the dove, which never returned. Noah removed 
the top of the ark and saw the ground was dry. All left 
the ark and went forth to multiply and replenish the earth. 
Noah then built an altar and sacrificed to the God, and 
the Lord smelled a sweet savor, and said in his heart that 
he would not again curse the ground, told Noah to multi- 
ply and replenish the earth, and he covenanted not to de- 



78 Com7nentaries on Hebrew 

stroy the earth again. Noah then planted a vineyard, got 
intoxicated on the wine, and lived three hundred and fifty 
years thereafter. 

Comparison of the Mosaic and Clialdean Legends, 

It will be seen by comparison of these accounts of an al- 
legorical or mythical flood, that they dififer only in some 
slight detail, such as the number of persons saved, the 
duration of the flood, and the kinds of birds sent out. Out 
of the Chaldean ship went a dove, a swallow, and a raven ; 
while out of the biblical ark went a dove on three different 
occasions. The threat to destroy all living things, the 
command to build the ark, the animals and food to go into 
it to save the seed, the building of the ark, going in, the 
deluge, the landing on a mountain, sending out the birds 
on three occasions, the last one not returning, the sacri- 
fice, the smelling a sweet savor, the blessing, and the cov- 
enant not to destroy the earth again by water are the same 
in both accounts, and in both stories the scene is located 
in the valley of the Euphrates. 

The place where the ark landed, in the Chaldean ac- 
count, is called Nizir; while in the bibHcal account it is 
called Ararat. The word Ararat was derived from the 
word Urdu, meaning high land. 

When we take into consideration the probability that 
the authors of the Hebrew Genesis depended entirely on 
tradition for the story that had been handed down from 
generation to generation by word of mouth, it is only sur- 
prising that the Mosaic account is so good a copy of the 
Chaldean legend. 

Accounts of Creation, by Berosus and Otiiers. 

These Chaldean legends, with other accounts of an his- 
torical character, were written out and translated into 



And Christian Mythology. 79 

Greek by Berosus, a Babylonian priest, about 360 to 330 
B. C, only a little less than one hundred years after Ezra 
et al compiled or wrote the books ascribed to Moses. 
Berosus had the same source of information that Ezra 
possessed; his story and the Chaldean legends differ 
about as much as does the Hebrew story from the Chal- 
dean, and he says that this account of the creation and 
the flood was an allegorical description of nature. There 
is another legend of creation closely resembhng the one 
related by Berosus, which came from the city of Cutha. 
The copy found at Nineveh, although written in Semitic, 
after the consolidation of the Gods Ea, Ishtar, Zamama, 
Aminit, Hebo, and Samas about 2350 B. C, was evidently 
taken from an Accadian text, which was much older than 
this date, as the name of the principal hero therein was 
Memangab, the son of the God Benani and Belili, his wife, 
of Accadia. 

Zoroaster's Account of Creation, 

There were other peoples and nations, much older than 
the Hebrews, who possessed similar stories concerning 
the creation of the world. In the Persian sacred script- 
ures, supposed to have been written by Zoroaster, who 
lived not later than 1800 B. C, we find an account of the 
creation of the world, of a first man and woman, who are 
called Mashia and Mashiana, who were placed in a garden, 
or paradise, and there were in communication with 
Ormuzd, the sun God; that Ahriman (the evil one), in the 
form of a serpent, entered the garden and corrupted the 
pair, who were then driven out of the garden. 

The Zend-Avesta also contains an account of a deluge, 
where a very pious man, called Yema, was commanded by 
Ormuzd to build an ark and place himself and family and 



80 Commentaries on Hebrew 

all pure animals therein. The command being complied 
with, the deluge came and destroyed all life on the earth 
except that in the ark. The man Yema is then com- 
manded to go forth, subdue and cultivate the earth. Yema 
leaves the ark, and like Noah, one of the first things he 
does is to get intoxicated on wine; he then builds cities, 
and the earth is peopled with his descendants. 

The Avesta contains the further statement, that Ahri- 
man offered the kingdom of the world to Zoroaster if he 
would abjure the true religion and forsake Ormuzd. The 
character and doings of Ahriman as pictured in the Zend- 
Avesta closely resemble those given of Satan in the 
Christian writings. 

This Persian story of the creation and flood, being of 
later origin than the Chaldean, like the Mosaic story was 
undoubtedly borrowed from Chaldea. 

Hindu Account of Creation. 

The sacred writings of the Hindus contain an account 
of a miraculous creation of the world by their foremost 
divinity, the sun. Of their doctrines concerning a trinity, 
we shall have more to say when we come to speak of the 
Christian myths. 

Scandinavian Account of Creation, 

The Scandinavians conceived ideas concerning the 
creation of the world, somewhat resembling those of the 
Chaldees and Hebrews. According to their theory, be- 
fore the earth existed all was chaos and vapor, out of the 
midst of which flowed great rivers; the warm breath of 
the spring sun melted the ice, out of which issued a great 
spirit called Hel, who ruled in Helheim. This great spirit 
created the world, divided the day from night, separated 



And Christian Mythology, 81 

the land from the water, placed in the heavens the sun, 
moon and stars, and created the animals of the land and 
the fishes of the sea. After this the Gods looked upon 
their works and saw that they were incomplete without 
man, so they took an ash tree, out of which they made 
man (an improvement over a mud man). To give him a 
helpmate they made woman out of an alder bush. The 
man they called Aske, and the woman, Embla. The su- 
preme God took to himself a wife from a giant race ; they 
had issue, three sons, Odin, Vila, and Ve, who became 
associate Gods with their father. The Gods then estab- 
lished their abode in a paradise called Valhalla. These 
people believed that the world would come to an end; that 
in the last days there would be war among the Gods; fire 
would spread over the earth, the sun would sink into the 
ocean, and all life would cease to exist; after which the 
Gods would create a new heaven and earth, and people 
the new earth with perfect beings, where happiness will 
reign forever. 

This was a very ancient religion, and we cite this much 
of it to show how closely it resembles the sacred writings 
and teachings of the Hebrews and Christians. 

On this array of evidence, is there room to entertain a 
doubt, by any reasonable man or woman, that the Bible 
story of creation, of Adam and Eve, of paradise, and of 
the sin and fall of Adam, as well as the story of the flood, 
are but idle tales, myths, and legends borrowed from ori- 
ental nations by the authors of the Pentateuch? 

If this story be false, and false it has been clearly proven 
to be, what becomes of the other story, that as Adam 
sinned and fell, so Christ must live to redeem the fallen? 

If there was no Adam to fall, then there could be no use 
for a redeemer. According to the Christian scheme, the 



82 Commentaries on Hebrew 

two are inseparably connected, the latter depending on the 
former; the deduction follows that as the first story is 
false, the second is equally false. 

The Sadducees* and Pharisees* Versions of the Messiah, 

At the time of the alleged birth of Christ, and for a long 
time prior thereto, there existed two sects or classes of 
Jews, the Sadducees and Pharisees. Both classes, rest- 
ing their opinions on prophecy, were looking for a Ales- 
siah, a second coming of Moses, a Savior, w^ho was to be 
of the House of David. This Messiah was to gather to- 
gether all of the Jews in a New Jerusalem, where they 
were to be made happy as in their patriarchal simpHcity; 
but as to the kind of Messiah and kingdom, as prophesied, 
to which they were looking forward, there w^as a wide 
difference of opinion. This prophecy, like all others, was 
vague, indefinite, and uncertain, capable of almost any 
construction. The Sadducees construed it to mean a 
restoration of the political kingdom as it existed under 
the reign of David and Solomon, and they expected to re- 
turn to their long-looked- and wished-for patriarchal sim- 
plicity and happiness; while, on the other hand, the Phari- 
sees asserted that the new kingdom was to be in heaven 
and of a spiritual nature. 

Philo, who had borrowed Plato's allegorical system, 
enlarged and somewhat modified it, belonged to the 
school of Pharisees. 

Philo, profiting by the Platonic school, inaugurated 
and established a complete system, with an ideal or alle- 
gorical Savior, had him crucified, resurrected, and in 
heaven, looking after the interests of his chosen people. 

In this scheme of Philo an ideal church, with its priests, 
bishops, and presbyters, had been created, with a full code 



And Christian Mythology. 83 

of rules, prayers, ceremonies, etc. ; in short, a complete re- 
ligious system in all, or nearly all, respects like that of the 
Christian church as it existed after the death of Christ. 

This allegorical system of Philo was in full operation 
at the time of the alleged birth of Christ. That the 
Christian scheme in all its essential parts was borrowed 
from the ideal teachings of Philo there can hardly be a 
doubt, as will be shown further on. The two systems, 
after the fathers of the church had established theirs, so 
closely resembled each other that several of the Christian 
fathers, as well as the followers of Philo, could not see any 
difference, and admitted that they were one and the same. 

Origen and Philo both took the same view of the mat- 
ter, which they embodied in their teachings; nor did Ori- 
gen hesitate to teach the allegorical character of the sys- 
tem. This he found himself compelled to do, so far as 
the more intelligent were concerned, to keep his doctrines 
from being treated by this class with contempt. 

We will here take leave of the legends of the Hebrews 
and others, go into Judea, the alleged birthplace of Christ, 
and explore the new religion. 

Christ, or Christus : Was He a Real Character^ or Was 
He a Myth ? 

Christ, or Christus as he was called by a Roman histo- 
rian, was born, it is claimed, in Judea, in a little obscure 
town called Nazareth, 753 years from the foundation oi 
Rome. 

The first question which here arises is: Was he a real 
person, or an ideal being placed at the.base of a religion as 
a foundation upon which to rear the framework of a new 
mythology? We use this term in its proper and true 
sense, for all religions, as a matter of fact, are but 



84 Commentaries on Hebrew 

myths. That a man by the name of Jesus Christ once ex- 
isted; that he was a Jew and hved in Judea, may be true, 
for Jesus has been, and is to-day, a common name among 
the Jews. But as to the Jesus Christ of the four gospels, the 
evidence clearly shows him to be a myth. The claim that 
Christ was the son of a God is an old pagan story too silly 
and childish to merit consideration. That claim is to-day 
only made by the man who lives by repeating stale false- 
hoods and worn-out legends, and by a class of men, 
women, and young children who have not sufficient 
capacity to understand plain facts when clearly presented. 

The question then is, did the generally credited histor- 
ical Christ of Nazareth ever live? This is an open ques- 
tion, to be determined one way or the other according to 
the weight of evidence. 

The fact that the existence of this man has been ac- 
cepted by nearly one-fifth of the inhabitants of the earth, 
for nearly 2,000 years, would, under ordinary circum- 
stances, raise at least a very strong presumption of the 
real existence of the man, thereby throwing the onus, or 
burden, of refuting this presumption on the party raising 
the issue. I say, under ordinary circumstances. The 
facts that the best evidence on this question has been sup- 
pressed, and that the power of the church has been used 
without stint to suppress investigation, take the case out 
of the ordinary rule, thereby throwing the burden of proof 
on the church party to maintain its claim. It must be re- 
membered that it has been only within the last few years 
that anyone had the privilege to question the position of 
the church. 

The only evidence that the church has to offer is the 
four gospels ; if these gospels are forgeries, as they have 
been proven to be, then the church has no evidence in 



And Christian Mythology. 85 

support of the existence of such a man. In addition to 
this, the church fathers were never able even to guess, 
within more than 130 years, the time of the man's supposed 
birth (Renan) ; nor can they tell who was his father, or even 
where he was born, or what became of him between the 
ages of twelve and thirty. If, in fact, such a man did once 
live, how is all of this ignorance concerning him to be ac- 
counted for? An obscure monk, near the close of the 
sixth century, after prodigious labor, finally guessed that 
the man was born about 580 years prior thereto ; even this 
guess was not accepted by the fathers of the church until 
the close of the eighth century. 

The question here naturally arises, If Christ were a real 
being and Christianity true, why did the church destroy 
all of the original evidence bearing on these points, and 
why did the church, under the penalty of death, prohibit 
every attempt to investigate its claims in these matters? 
Does not the truth everywhere invite investigation? and 
is it not equally true that crime and fraud fear the light of 
truth? Apply this rule, and ask yourself on which side 
the church and its priests stand. 

If the whole system or scheme of Christianity was bor- 
rowed, and the .names ascribed to the four gospels are 
forgeries, all of which we have hereinafter shown to be the 
fact, why the necessity of placing a genuine person at the 
head of these forgeries and borrowed legends? 

Christ, the actual Jesus, says Octavius B. Frothingham, 
in his "Cradle of the Christ," is inaccessible to scientific 
research; his image cannot be recovered; he leaves no 
writings, his followers were illiterate, the mind of the age 
was confused ; he is reported to be a Pharisee, and a native 
of Nazareth. The Messiahs all started out of Galilee, all 
found followers. Tradition goes out of its way to connect 



86 Commentaries on Hehre 



w 



Christ with the "House of David." The moral precepts 
put into his mouth, including the Sermon on the Alount, 
says Strauss, were such as the times called for, and so they 
were copied from tradition. 

The critics of Strauss insist that the person of Christ 
must have lived; that he could not have been invented. 
Strange position to take, says Frothingham, in view of 
the fact that idealization is one of the commonest feats of 
mankind; that the human imagination is constantly con- 
structing phantoms. The materials for constructing the 
person being given in the Hebrew Genesis, and the plastic 
power being provided by Hebrew enthusiasm, the result 
might have been predicted. 

The critics of Baur insist that the New Testament and 
the developments of the first century could not have been 
created out of Rabbinical fancies. Strauss answers this by 
saying, "persons are not necessarily individuals; names 
are often used to represent multitudes and nations ; such a 
person was not necessary to account for the existence of 
the religion afterward called Christianity; the personal 
Christ had faded away; he had disappeared from view be- 
fore the gospels were written. The conclusion is that no 
clearly defined traces of the person of Christ remain on or 
beneath the surface of Christendom." 

Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, a man of great learning and 
influence, an extensive writer, was born 20 to 10 B. C. 
This great sage traveled extensively over the Roman Em- 
pire; was in frequent consultation with the Emperor and 
statesmen of Rome, also with the learned Rabbis of 
Judea at the very time when, it is said, Christ did his 
preaching, and at the time of his alleged crucifixion; in 
the face of all these facts, Philo never so much as mentions 
such a man as Jesus Christ in any of his extensive works. 



A7id Christian Mythology. 87 

According to the gospel stories, Christ at twelve years 
of age confounded the wise men of Jerusalem with his 
superior knowledge, then was lost sight of until thirty 
years of age, when for two or three years he traveled over 
Judea, often visiting Jerusalem, and everywhere he went 
was surrounded by the lame, halt, bUnd, deaf, and other 
incurables, all of whom he instantly cured by a look, a 
word, or a touch, and he even raised the dead. 

At the end of two or three years, he was, by order of the 
Rabbis, apprehended, given a public trial, condemned, and 
put to death, and at the end of three days he arose from 
the dead and thereafter appeared to and conversed with 
great numbers of people. I may here properly ask, Why 
did not some one or all of these people who saw him after 
his resurrection come forward and in some manner or 
form vouch for these wonderful things? That not one of 
them did do so is enough to stamp the gospel stories as 
untrue. All of these things, according to the gospel 
story, took place in and around Jerusalem, a city filled 
with Jewish priests and other learned men, including 
Philo, and not one of them ever heard of any of these 
wonderful cures or even of the existence of the man 
Christ. 

Let us here pause and ask any intelligent man or wo- 
man whose mind is not entirely obscured by religious 
superstition, whether he or she can believe these things 
could, in fact, have taken place and not have been seen or 
heard of by any one of the learned men? There can be but 
one answer: Suppose that one-half of these wonderful 
things should take place to-day, in any part of the civilized 
world, how long would it be before every intelligent man 
and woman would know of, and be talking about them? 
While we thus present these points, we are not unmindful 



88 Commentaries on Hebrew 

of the fact that no amount of evidence, however conclu- 
sive in itself, would convince the bigoted or willfully 
ignorant devotee of his error. He would be like the Rev. 
McClintock, who, in his cyclopaedia, after reviewing all of 
the critics and proving beyond question that Moses did 
not write the Pentateuch, winds up by saying, that he pre- 
fers to believe that Moses did write the books. That is, 
he prefers to believe what he knows to be false, rather 
than believe the truth when it does not accord with his 
preconceived opinions — and this is equally true with a 
majority of the devout. 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica admits that Philo never 
heard of Christ or of the Christians. 

If such a man as Christ had then lived and been a man 
of any note, how is it possible that he could have so com- 
pletely escaped the notice of Philo? 

The Rev. Robert Taylor, after a most thorough re- 
search of every known document concerning the Chris- 
tians of the first century, says that he cannot so much as 
find an allusion to such a man as Jesus Christ. 

Where were the numerous Hebrew and Roman writers 
during this period that they never so much as heard of 
Christ? Could the man have lived and gained any noto- 
riety and all of these writers not have heard of him? It 
seems quite impossible. - 

Among his biographers, the authors of the four gos- 
pels, two of them do not mention the so-called miraculous 
birth, and two of the four fail to notice his so-called ascen- 
sion. 

Two of the most important things in the man's history 
are thus overlooked by his biographers. 

Kant and Spinoza, in speaking of this matter, say that 
while it may be possible, it is not probable, that the his- 



And Christian 3iythology. 89 

torical man Christ ever lived; that Christianity must rest 
its claim on an ideal being in the form of man. Plato and 
Philo, with a theoretical religion almost identical with 
Christianity, rested their scheme on an ideal man. 

And now comes the Rev. McClintock, one of the most, 
bigoted Christians, admitting the truth when it is against 
Christianity only when forced to do so, and, in this case, 
seeing no escape from the overwhelming force of evi- 
dence, speaking through McCHntock & Strong's ''Cyclo- 
paedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Litera- 
ture," says: "In the conflict between Christianity and 
reason, Puritan theology holds Christ to be the very cen- 
ter of the system, that all lies in the question whether such 
a person, historically, be necessary. Suppose philosophy 
could show to the conclusion of all thoughtful men, that 
the person of a Christ is a self-contradiction and an impos- 
sibility, there would no longer be any conflict between 
Christian theology and philosophy, because with the per- 
son of Christ, would be abolished the Christian theology. 
Christ is not, strictly speaking, a proper name, but a des- 
ignation of office. Jesus Christ, or rather Jesus the Christ, 
is a mode of expression as, John the Baptist, or baptizer." 
lie further says : 'in the prophetic scriptures we find this 
appellation given to illustrate the personage who, under 
various designations, is so often spoken of as destined to 
appear in a distant age as a great deliverer. Messiah, 
Christ, Anointed, is, then, a term equivalent to conse- 
crated, sacred, set apart." After saying this, he adds, 
"The import of this designation as given to Jesus of 
Nazareth may now readily be appreciated." He further 
says: "Christ, Messiah, Anointed, all refer to one and the 
same thing, meaning the revealer of divine truth, often 



90 Commentaries on Hebreio 

represented by the figure of the lamb, the vine, and fish; 
these words have no reference to the person." 

Thus we have it from the highest ecclesiastical author- 
ity that Christ is a myth, the personification of an idea, an 
allegorical being, a shadow, to be made by a lamb, a vine, 
or a fish. This accounts for the fact that the early church 
fathers placed the figure of a lamb, instead of a man, on 
the cross. 

When the author wrote the above he must have had 
Eusebius in his mind, who said sixteen hundred years ago 
that Christianity was no new thing, that it was as old as 
Abraham. This is putting Christianity in the background 
by one who has by the church been properly character- 
ized as the father of ecclesiastical history. 

Athenagoras, an Athenian Christian writer, in his 
"Apology to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius" (176), used 
Hebrew scriptures without even a mention of such a man 
as Christ or of Christian writings. 

Dr. Reich says that Hermos, one of the Christian 
fathers of the first century, whose writings have come 
down to us, nowhere alludes to such a man as Christ. 
This writer, Reich, in speaking of the writings of the first 
century names Strabo, the elder Pliny, Plutarch, Arion, 
Dion, Chrisostomos, Seneca, Quintius Curtius, Philo, et 
al, and then says, there is not to be found in the writings 
of any of these men as much as an allusion to such a man 
as Christ, or to Christianity. It will be remembered that 
the writings of these men cover every event and every 
man of the slightest importance at that time. Strabo 
wrote seventeen books. His twelfth book is devoted to 
Palestine and the Hebrew religion. The elder Pliny's 
writings are a complete cyclopaedia of all things human 
and divine. Seneca's works treat of the very things com- 



And Christian Mythology, 91 

prised in Christian ethics, and not a mention by any one 
of them of Christ or Christianity. 

The struggle is now fully on between the numerous 
critics on the one side, the most of whom maintain that 
Christ is a myth, and the more learned theologians on the 
other,who are divided in opinion. The one class is with 
McClintock, conceding away the person of Christ as lost, 
but at the same time attempting to save the creed or re- 
ligion ; while the other class, like the former, seeing that 
the four gospels have been proven forgeries, are attempt- 
ing to sustain the personal existence of Christ by appeal- 
ing to pagan writers. They assert that Josephus, Sueto- 
nius, Abgarus, Tacitus, Lucian, Pliny, and Celsus, in their 
writings, have recognized the existence of the personal 
Christ. 

While this contest is waging hot among intelligent 
men, the priestlet, like all babies, is vigorously shaking 
his rattle-box in the ears of devout old women, silly girls, 
and heedless boys, unmindful and ignorant of the near 
approach of the critical cyclone that is about to destroy 
him and his Christian dogmas. 

Let us see if any one of these seven pagan writers has 
in any way recognized the existence of Christ. 

The statement in Josephus has long since been recog- 
nized by all critics to be a clear case of forgery, made in 
the time of Eusebius, and probably by him, as he was well 
known to be a forger of Christian writings. 

Lucian, from the Euphrates, a philosopher of note, in 
his "Philopatres," is, by forced construction, made to 
speak of a trinity and a Galilean, who, he said, by way of 
ridicule, has ascended to the third heaven, where he is en- 
gaged in keeping records of the good and bad actions of 
men. This is nothing more nor less than a take-off or 



92 Vommentaries on Hebrev) 

burlesqiie of the claims of the Christians, and is now re- 
garded as a forgery, so says the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica. 

As to Abgarus, king of Edessa, the church fathers re- 
ported that he wrote a letter to Christ to come and cure 
him of a malady, to which Christ wrote back that he 
would send a disciple; that Abgarus turned over to the 
church a picture of Christ, the letter and the pocket-hand- 
kerchief used by Christ while on the cross to wipe the 
sweat ofif his face. Eusebius believed this foolish story; 
but, like that told of Lucian, the whole affair is known to 
be spurious, says the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

As to Suetonius, in his life of Claudius, he makes men- 
tion of Chrestus, the leader of the Chrestians, a well- 
known pernicious Jewish sect of that time. 

As to Pliny, he wrote to the Emperor Trajan to be in- 
structed how to deal with the Christians, who, he said, ad- 
hered to an extravagant superstition called Christianity; 
but in no way or manner does he recognize the existence 
of such a man as Christ. 

Celsus wrote two books in the second century, against 
Christianity, in which he ridicules the claims of the Chris- 
tians, and speaking from their own assertions and writings, 
calls their leader, Panthera, the son of a Roman soldier. 
In no manner does this writer recognize such a man as 
Christ. 

The question here naturally suggests itself: Why did 
the fathers of the church commit all these forgeries, to 
prove by pagan writers the existence of their Christ, if he 
was a real person? The answer is obvious : he was a myth, 
and they not only knew it, but were the parties who cre- 
ated the myth with intent to cheat and defraud the people, 
that they, the priests, might keep in power. 



And Christian Mytliology. 93 

Tacitus, on whose statement the Christians place their 
greatest reUance, belonged to the second century. He 
speaks of the Christians in the most contemptuous man- 
ner, calls them the followers of one Christus, who was put 
to death for a crime. How anyone can torture this into a 
recognition of Christ, it is difficult to see. In this state- 
ment Tacitus was only repeating, or reciting, the words 
of the Christians, but in no manner asserting or stating 
that there ever existed such a man as Christ. 

The Encyclopedia Britannica, after recognizing the for- 
gery in Josephus says : "Not a single fact about Jesus can 
be learned from Jewish writers except in the 'Unexpur- 
gated Edition of the Talmud,' where some twenty refer- 
ences are made to Christ, in which he is called Panthera." 
This last authority, speaking further of Christ, says: ''Our 
Imowledge (of Christ) derived from heathen sources is 
much less than we could have desired and expected. The 
silence of contemporary Gentile and Jewish writers, which 
would be otherwise inexplicable, finds its explanation in 
the New Testament." 

What a position ! Compelled to rely on forged gospels 
and bogus Christian writings to sustain a forlorn hope. 

Having exhausted its efforts to find some mention of 
Christ and Christianity by any one of the numerous pagan 
and Jewish writers of the first century, the church turned 
its attention to the tombs and catacombs of Italy, Greece, 
and Asia Minor, for some symbolic evidence of its hero 
and its creed. For this purpose, in 1578, Bario, Marchi, 
and Count de Rossi were appointed. After much time 
and labor these commissioners succeeded in finding as 
emblems the dove, the anchor, the olive, the lamb, the 
palm leaf, and the Greek letters A. O. (Alpha and 
Omega). At the time of these finds, it was believed that the 



94 Commentaries on Hebrew 

emblems referred to Christ, but none of them bore dates 
back of the third century. Since these things were un- 
earthed, the same emblems have been found among well- 
known Jewish catacombs, bearing dates prior to the al- 
leged birth of Christ. Dr. Reich, after referring to the 
writings of the apostolic fathers, the absence of any men- 
tion of Christ by Hebrew and pagan writers of the first 
century, and to the result of this search among the cata- 
combs, says the so-called evidence of Christ and Chris- 
tianity rests on faith alone, without any historical evi- 
dence whatever in its support. So it seems that naked, 
unsupported faith is all the Christian has to rely on as a 
substitute for history, science, and common sense. 

The Crucified Man [if Ttiere Was One), Wlio Was He, 
Wlien and Where Was He Born ? 

The Christians have been taught to believe, and as a 
matter of course they have believed what their priests 
have taught them, that the crucified being was a man 
or a God, depending on circumstances; that his mother's 
name was Mary, that while she was engaged to be mar- 
ried to a man by the name of Joseph (whether he had any 
other name the records are silent) a white dove lighted on 
her head and by its touch conception took place ; that this 
dove was a symbol of the Holy Ghost. 

In the apocryphal Gospel of the Birth of Mary, chapter 
ii to viii, we are told that both Mary and her mother were 
the oiTspring of the Holy Ghost. In chapter vii we are 
told that the Angel Gabriel called on Mary, "filling her 
chamber with a prodigious light, and in a most courteous 
manner saluting her, said : *Hail Mary, hail Mary, virgin 
of the Lord, the Lord is with you.' But the virgin, who 
had before been well acquainted with the countenances 



And Christian Mythology. 95 

of angels, and to whom such a light from heaven was no 
uncommon thing, was neither terrified with the vision of 
the angel nor astonished at the greatness of the light, but 
only troubled about the angel's words, meditating as to 
their meaning; the angel replied: Tear not, Mary, as 
though I intended anything inconsistent with your chas- 
tity in this salutation.' " 

The angel here tells Mary that she is a favorite with 
the Lord, and, as a virgin, she is to have a son who is to 
be the king of kings and the Lord of Lords, and that his 
reign is to extend to the ends of the earth; he also adds 
much more fine talk. Mary takes in the situation, feels 
flattered, ''and replies not as though she were unbelieving, 
but willing to know the manner of it." To this the angel 
says to Mary: "The Holy Ghost will overshadow you 
without the heats of lust;" "then Mary stretched forth her 
hands, lifting her eyes to heaven, said: 'Behold the hand- 
maid of the Lord; let it be unto me according to the 
word.' " No comments. Chapter v. As Mary advances 
in years, her parents forsake her. The high priest issues 
an order commanding all virgins over fourteen years of 
age to marry; Mary objects; the priest calls a council; the 
council issues a summons to all marriageable men to ap- 
pear, staff in hand. The summons is obeyed. Among 
numerous others, a man by the name of Joseph puts in an 
appearance. Mary is the only young lady in attendance. 
It is ordered (probably to avoid scandal) that Mary take 
a husband. Silence prevailing, a dove lights on Joseph's 
staff; the die is cast; Joseph must marry the girl; he ob- 
jects, accuses the council of entrapping him; pleads his 
old age and large family of children (being a 
widower) and the youth of Mary; excuses being declared 
out of order^ poor Joseph is then arid there forced into be- 



96 Commentaries on Hebrew 

trothment, after which Mary and Joseph separate. At 
the end of four months Joseph is called on to fulfil his en- 
gagement; Mary is called in; Joseph does not like the 
looks of things, declares he has been deceived, accuses 
Mary of improper conduct, and threatens to break the 
engagement. Knowing the facts, Mary does not insist 
on the marriage. At -this juncture the angel puts in an 
appearance, takes Joseph to one side, tells him that 
Mary is all right and that the heir apparent is the son of 
the Holy Ghost and destined to rule the nations of the 
earth. Joseph, being a very religious man, not quite see- 
ing the point, and feeHng somewhat flattered at the pros- 
pect of having a heavenly king for an adopted son, enters 
into the marriage ; the ceremony being over, the bride and 
groom return to their separate abodes. In a very short 
time thereafter they meet and journey to Bethlehem, 
where, in a cave, attended by a midwife, Mary gives birth 
to the God of the Christians, who after being put into dia- 
pers, and all is well, is carried down into Egypt in the arms 
of his mother. The rest of the story will be told in our 
treatise on the apocryphal gospels. 

We are also told that this child's name was Jesus 
Christ; that his mother and Joseph resided at Nazareth, 
but that in order to fulfil a prophecy he had to be born in 
Bethlehem. Now, as Bethlehem was a long distance from 
Nazareth, how did the parents, or, at least, how did Joseph 
and Mary, come to go there? The fathers of the church 
got up the story that they went there to pay taxes, and 
while there the child was born. The people of Judea had 
not been taxed, and we are told that this was the first tax, { 
and that it was levied by Governor Quirinus. But in 
making up this story the chroniclers were not acquainted 
with the fact that Quirinus was not governor of that prov- J 



And Christian Mythology. 97 

ince until nine years after the time finally fixed by the 
church as the date of their hero's birth. But what signified 
nine years? There was a prophecy to be fulfilled, and 
time cuts no figure in such a case; the end justified the 
means, the prophecy had to be fulfilled even if it re- 
quired a thousand falsehoods to accomplish the de- 
sired end. There was another prophecy to be fulfilled, 
the Messiah must come of the House of David, that is, 
he must be a lineal descendant of King David, and at the 
same time the Messiah is to be the son of Jehovah. This 
mixed affair presented a complicated problem, but the 
church fathers were equal to the task, as one will learn by 
studying the proceedings of the ecclesiastical councils. 

Thus far we have assumed that the crucified man was 
the son of Joseph, but we must remember that this point 
is in dispute; probably he was filius nullius. 

In the first edition of the Talmud, the hero of the 
Christians is referred to about twenty times, and each time 
he is called the son of Panthera (Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica). 

Celsus, the Roman historian, in his comments on 
Christianity, says that Mary was divorced from Joseph, 
and while wandering about Judea fell in love with a Ro- 
man soldier named Panthera, who became the father of 
(Christ. But of this we shall have more to say hereafter. 
When the crucified man (if there was one) was born, and 
when he died, has never been ascertained. The fathers of 
the church tried for six hundred years to find out, and 
then arbitrarily fixed the date of his birth. 

Let us consult the authorities as to Christ's pedigree. 
Julius Africanus says his friends, the church fathers, fixed 
it up to suit their purposes, and arbitrarily connected him 
with the House of David. Yes, and how did thev do it? 



98 Commentaries on Hebrew 

They ran the pedigree both ways, but failed to make the 
ends meet. 

According to the first chapter of Matthew it took only 
twenty-eight generations to run from David down 
through Joseph to Christ, while according to third Luke, 
it required forty-three generations to run from Christ 
through Joseph up to David, and in the two genealogies 
the ancestral names were entirely different. 

This discrepancy can be accounted for only on the 
ground that the two authors, in fabricating their stories, 
did not compare notes in chasing the myth, or on the 
hypothesis that less time is consumed in running down 
stream than in pulHng up against the current. 

The Time When the Hero was Born Being Unlinown, 
It Was Arbitrarily Fixed, 

The writer in Chambers' Encyclopaedia tells us that the 
day and month and even the year of Christ's birth, and 
the time of his death, were absolutely unknown to the 
fathers of the church ; that the date of his birth now fixed, 
December 25th, in the year of Rome 752, cannot be 
traced back of the middle of the fourth century ; that the 
reckoning of dates from his birth did not begin until the 
sixth century, and that the date of his death cannot be 
determined. 

The writer in Encyclopaedia Britannica says : 'Tt must 
be admitted that we cannot determine the exact year of 
Christ's birth; that about 4 B. C. is, by most critics, fixed 
as probably about the time." 

Renan informs us that, among the early fathers and 
others of the church who had made this matter a special 
study, there were one hundred and thirty-two different 
opinions as to even the year in which Christ was born. 



And Christian Mythology, 99 

John F. Blake, in his ''History of the Heavens," says: 
•'The early Christians being indifferent as to the time of 
the birth of Christ, it remained for a monk by the name 
of Denys, or Dionysius Exiguus, to fix the date of his 
birth. This monk lived in obscurity at Rome about 580 
A. C. (Anno Christi) ; his nativity being unknown, he was 
called a Scythian, an appellation applied by the Romans 
to the barbarians of the extreme north." 

This obscure monk was the first who made the attempt 
by chronological calculations to discover the year of the 
birth of Christ. The era fixed by Dionysius was not 
adopted until the close of the eighth century, when 
the Venerable Bede induced the church to accept 
it ; but the church has since repudiated this adoption. The 
time when the year was tq commence was not agreed 
upon until a later date; even the date as we now have it 
was not agreed to without a struggle, for several of the 
bishops boldly asserted that there was no evidence what- 
ever as to the time of the birth or death of Christ, and to 
fix a date in the absence of some evidence was to arbi- 
trarily make a date for the benefit of the church. 

When these controversies were at white heat as to 
Christ's birth, the three Christian sects, known as Docetes, 
Marcionites, and Marchacans, boldly denied the gospel 
story of the conception, birth, and the thirty years of 
Christ's life, and asserted that he first appeared, fully ma- 
tured, on the banks of the Jordan, created by omnipotence 
(Gibbon) ; and, as to Mary, Christ's alleged mother, Rev. 
H. H. Milman, in his notes to Gibbon, asserts that the 
Christians of the first four centuries were ignorant of the 
time of the birth and death of Mary, and that the tradition 
of Ephesus, of her death and burial, was affirmed by de- 
cree of council. Why did not this reverend gentleman 



100 Commentaries on Hebrew 

tell us the whole truth, and say that the decree was ob- 
tained by fraud, instead of suppressing this important 
fact? Apply the maxim, "Suppressio veri suggestio 
falsi." The answer, in line with his profession, is not to 
tell the truth when it hurts the church. Gibbon comes to 
the rescue, and tells us that Memnon, bishop of Ephesus, 
by the purchase of thirty or forty episcopal votes and by 
clamor and force at the council of Ephesus, procured a 
decree sustaining this tradition. 

Had Christ any Education ? 

In the age when, and the country where, Chris? was 
believed to have been born, a liberal education was only 
within the reach of the wealthy class of people. There 
were no schools in the small.towns, the poor had not the 
means nor the opportunity to acquire even the rudiments 
of an education, and if he, Christ, had been a man of edu- 
cation he would not have been the associate and compan- 
ion of common, ignorant laborers, or have selected such 
men as apostles. These things, taken in connection with 
the fact that he left no writings at his death, not even so 
much as his signature, may in all fairness be taken as 
presumptive evidence that he was unable to write; and if 
unable to write, then we may presume that he could not 
read. Neither could Mohammed read or write, but this 
fact did not prevent him from establishing a system of 
religion which has spread over large portions of Asia, 
Africa, and Europe, and at one time nearly supplanted 
Christianity everywhere. 

With possibly two exceptions, all the founders of relig- 
ions were ignorant men, being unable to read or write. 



And Christian Mythology. 101 

More Messiah's than One. 

There were in Judea a number of persons claiming to be 
the Messiah, but all except Christ were suppressed before 
the germ had sufficiently matured to reproduce and per- 
petuate itself. Christ was a Jew, but who was his father 
is a matter of serious doubt. Celsus, as will be shown 
more fully hereafter, says that Christ was the son of a 
Roman soldier; but not a Roman histcrian or chronicler 
ever heard of the man until a century after hib, al- 
leged death. Had he been a person of any note or stand- 
ing, or had he said or done any unusual thing, a notice of 
him could not have escaped the numerous Hebrew and 
Roman writers of his time, nor would the church fathers 
have failed to learn when and where he was born and 
when he died. The fact that they did not know and have 
never been able to find out, but after centuries were com- 
pelled to arbitrarily fix dates for his birth and death, 
would under ordinary circumstances raise a strong pre- 
sumption that he never had other than a myihical exist- 
ence. 

As to the foolish story of his divine parentage, there 
seem to have been many precedents, from some or all of 
which the story undoubtedly had its origin. 

The story or legend concerning the birth of Plato is in 
all essentials the same as the one made for Christ, and 
from which the Christ version was probably copied ; or it 
may have been taken from the life of Apollonius. 

According to his disciples, Plato was born of a pure 
virgin named Perictione, who had suffered an immaculate 
conception at the touch of the God Apollo, and Apollo 
had declared to Ariston, to whom Perictione was be- 
trothed, the parentage of the child. The Platonic legend 



102 Commentaries on Hebrew 

cviitedates the Christian one four hundred years, and was 
taught and believed at the time of Christ. 

The next story, closely allied to this, but much older, 
comes from China, where tradition says that Buddha was 
born of a virgin amid great miracles ; that in after life he 
was tempted by an evil spirit called Mara, which tempta- 
tion he defied. 

Several like cases have been found. In fact, all the 
great pagan religions have told similar stories, some of 
which, in brief, are hereinafter given under other head- 
ings. 

If the early fathers, in copying the Platonic legend, 
filled the vacuum with a myth, it was in keeping with their 
general conduct. Christ, if a real being, was a Jew, and 
preached Jewish doctrines ; he did not even dream of es- 
tablishing a new religion. Timid at first, after getting the 
aid of John he became more bold, finally conceived the 
idea that he was the Messiah, proclaimed himself as such 
and as king of the Jews. 

The Jews ridiculed his claim, nor was it until after he 
had threatened to demolish the temple of Jerusalem that 
ti.ey commenced proceedings to suppress him by threat- 
ening him with prosecution. He had now carried matters 
too far to recant, so he boldly defied the authorities ; there 
was nothing for them to do but arrest and try him; he 
knew that an arrest and trial meant death, so he braced 
himself up for the result. 

Let us go back to the gospel story and follow him from the 
time when he commenced to preach in his own little town, 
where he soon learned to his chagrin and mortification 
that a prophet in his own country has no honor, for the 
people one and all derided him, reminded him of his mean 
birth and calling, and advised him to continue making 



And Christian 3Iythology. 103 

plows and ox-yokes. Finding no support at home, he 
went to Capernaum, a little town on the shore of the Sea 
of Galilee, where he commenced to discourse. His 
mother and family followed him. The people at once rid- 
iculed him, and when he persisted in his preaching, a mob 
gathered and dragged him out of town. John the Baptist 
was killed about this time, and the people of Galilee had 
taken such decided action against the new prophet that he 
and his disciples fled to the desert of Bethsaida, where he 
commenced to harangue in the small settlements. There 
he made a few converts among the common, ignorant 
people, but the hostility of the better class was so mani- 
fest against him that his mother and family deemed his 
life in danger. They here took a decided stand against 
him, excused him to the people on the ground of insanity, 
ond insisted on his flight. So he fled and kept himself 
concealed for a time, and then occasionally went back to 
Galilee. From there he went to Tyre and Sidon, where he 
was threatened with violence; then he fled to parts un- 
knov/n, finally sailed for Magdala, thence went to Caesa- 
rea and Philippi, where the people demanded the evi- 
dence of his Messiahship. Being unable to furnish such 
evidence, he took his departure for Hermon; from here 
he sought the most secluded retreats, after which he 
turned up at Jerusalem. He is banished from here, and 
goes back to Galilee. Finding no shelter there, he starts 
for Engannim. Being warned against that place, he 
changes his course and goes back to Jerusalem, where he 
is threatened with arrest. He leaves and goes to Ephraim, 
from there he goes back to Jerusalem, and then to Beth- 
any. Finding no place to rest, like the bird out of the 
ark, and being in love with his own preaching and unable 
or unwilling to restrain himself, he defies all opposition 



l04 Commentaries on Hebrew 

and again returns to Jerusalem, where he finds prepara- 
tion for his arrest. He now goes to Mount OHves, where 
he secretes himself, but is finally arrested. Seeing that 
their martyr has not the power to protect himself, his dis- 
ciples all flee, he is tried, condemned, and nailed to the 
cross, the same as all others condemned to death. His 
last words to his disciples were to take care of his mother. 

This statement as to his wanderings finds its support 
only in the writings of his chroniclers, the truth of which 
lacks proper vouchers. 

Had the subsequent decree of the Council of Nice, ad- 
judging him to be one of the Gods, been in existence dur- 
ing these wanderings, the man might, by virtue of his 
own pretended power, have saved himself from these 
insults and final death. 

The fact that in all of Christ's wanderings over Judea, 
the people had but one opinion concerning him (except a 
few ignorant followers), that opinion being that he was 
but an ordinary man, slightly insane on religion, would 
under ordinary circumstances have been sufficient evi- 
dence to settle his status. 

It remained for the bishops at the council of Nice, more 
than three hundred years thereafter, to reverse the opinion 
of the people of a whole province, who tried the man while 
al'-ve. 

The Twenty Historical Messiahs. 

As we are now engaged in the discussion of the l\Ies- 
siah problem, it will be first in order to look over the field 
and see how many men have, since the advent of the al- 
leged Christ, appeared and claimed to be the true Mes- 
siah. 

Messiah, as defined in the Hebrew scriptures, is an ideal 



Jnd Christian Mythology. 105 

kirg, the king who would deliver the people of Israel from 
bondage. *'The Cnrist" is nothing more than a transla- 
tion of "the ]\Iessiah;" it is collective Israel, or the twelve 
tribes, which appear under the symbol of the son of man. 

The Hebrew prophecy, as understood by the Phari- 
sees, referred to a person; hence the great number of men 
claiming to be the deliverer. 

We here give a list of twenty of the more prominent 
ones. After the time of the mythical Christ, Simon was the 
first of note who proclaimed himself the king and long- 
looked-for Messiah. He was so received by the Jews of 
Judea, and by them acknowledged the Messiah; he set up 
a government, coined money in his own name, and raised 
a large army to oppose the Roman Emperor. Hadrian 
sent an army against him; on its approach, Simon took 
refuge in the town of Either, where he was besieged, 
routed, and killed. 

It is said by an able historian that the Jews lost from 
five to six hundred thousand men in their efforts to sustain 
this Messiah. 

During the reign of Theodosius, 434 A. C, one Moses 
Cretensis claimed to be a second Moses, proclaimed him- 
self ]\lessiah, told the Jews of Crete to follow him, and 
that he would divide the waters of the sea for their safe 
passage from the land of bondage. They left all behind 
them and flocked to his standard in great numbers; he 
took them to a rugged bluflf overlooking the sea, from 
which thousands of men, women, and children rushed 
headlong into the waters and were drowned, at the sight 
of which this Messiah fled. 

In the reign of Justin, 520 A. C, another Messiah, 
named Dunaan, calling himself the son of Moses, suc- 
ceeded in procuring a large following, collected his ad- 



106 Commentaries on Hebrew 

herents, and with them entered a small town in Arabia 
Felix, where he was captured and put to death. 

In 529 A. C. the Jews and Samaritans rebelled against 
the Emperor Justin and set up as their Messiah one 
Julian. The emperor sent an army, which slaughtered 
great numbers of Jews, took the Messiah prisoner, and 
put him to death. 

In 721 A. C. a man b}?- the name of Jerenus arose in 
Spain, proclaimed himself the true Messiah, and for a time 
had a great number of followers. 

In 1 1 38 a Persian Jew proclaimed himself the true Mes- 
siah, succeeded in getting around himself a vast army, and 
in his struggle with the government was put to death, and 
his followers were treated with great cruelty. 

In 1 1 57 another Messiah appeared in Cordova, and suc- 
ceeded in converting most of the common people, but was 
condemned by the better class. 

In 1 167 a man by the name of David Alrui arose in the 
kingdom of Fez, proclaiming himself the Messiah, and 
succeeded in getting a large following. 

In the same year an Arabian Messiah appeared and pre- 
tended to work miracles. He was arrested and brought 
before the king, who questioned him concerning his mis- 
sion. He answered he was sent by God ; the king asked 
for a sign; the Messiah said, *'Cut ofif my head and see me 
return to life again." The king took him at his word, but 
life failed to return. 

Shortly after this a Jew beyond the Euphrates pro- 
claimed himself the Messiah, and drew vast multitudes of 
people about him. He, like the others, was put to death. 

In 1 174 another Messiah appeared in Persia. He, like 
the others, had a great following of the common, ignorant 
people. 



And Christian Mythology. 107 

Jn 1 176 David Almaner proclaimed himself the true 
Messiah, in Moravia. He made himself visible and in- 
visible at will. After securing many followers, he was ar- 
rested and put to death. 

In 1 199 a famous magician and a man of great learning, 
by the name of David El David, arose in Persia, pro- 
claimed himself the long-looked-for Messiah, raised an 
army, was taken prisoner, made his escape, was retaken, 
and put to death. Great numbers of the followers of 
this Savior shared the fate of their Messiah. 

In 1502 a German rabbi of Venice, named Ascher, pro- 
claimed himself Messiah, and attained quite a following 
in Europe. 

About this time one David Reubeni proclaimed himself 
Messiah in Portugal. He claimed to have come from 
India, with the necessary credentials from heaven; by 
this he gained a large support among the better class. 

In 161 5 another Messiah appeared in India, where he 
gained considerable following among the Portuguese 
Jews. 

In 1624 a Messiah appeared in the Low Countries, de- 
clared himself of the house of David, promised to destroy 
Rome and the anti-Christ kingdom of Turkey. 

In 1666 one Sabbathai Zeb, of Aleppo, proclaimed him- 
self Messiah and king of the twelve tribes of Israel. As 
this man was the greatest of all the Messiahs, he deserves 
a more extensive notice. Great multitudes flocked to his 
standard from Arabia, and other parts of Asia, who be- 
lieved him to be the king of heaven and earth, who had 
come to deliver the Hebrew people from sin and death. 
Being threatened by the Mohammedan powers he gave 
up his claim, joined the followers of the Prophet, was 
given the name of Effendi, and appointed to an office. 



108 Commentaries on Hebrew 

History informs us that this man Sabbathai Zeb founded 
a considerable sect, which is still in existence ; that he was 
a Jew, and that when a child he was sent to the rabbinical 
school, where he rapidly learned all the sacred lore of the 
times. At the age of fifteen he studied the Cabala, and at 
the age of eighteen attained the title of sage, delivered lect- 
ures, and expounded divine law. At the age of twenty- 
four he revealed to his disciples that he was the Messiah, 
the son of David, the true redeemer. Hearing of this, the 
sages of Smyrna notified him that he had incurred the 
penalty of death by violating the sacred law, whereupon 
he fled to Salonica, where he again set up his claim. Be- 
ing there threatened, he fled, first to Athens, and from 
there to the Morea. Finding no friends there, he went to 
Alexandria, to Cairo, and thence to Jerusalem, where he 
remained several years teaching the Cabala, proclaiming 
himself Messiah, and converting thousands of people. So 
numerous were his followers in most places where he 
preached, that business was suspended, Jews sacrificed 
their property, and made ready to follow their redeemer 
to Jerusalem, the land of promise. Even the consuls re- 
ceived orders to inquire into this extraordinary^ move- 
ment. 

In 1682 a German rabbi, named Mordacia, set up a 
claim in Italy to the Messiahship, and, after receiving 
quite a following, fled to Poland to save his life. 

About the middle of the eighteenth century a Polish 
Jew proclaimed himself the Llessiah, and made thousands 
of converts. His influence was so great that at his death 
four thousand persons attended his funeral. 

Thus it will be seen that ignorance and religion have 
ever been fellow-travelers. This number of INIessiahs 
does not exhaust the list of the historical anointed who 



And Christian Mythology. 109 

have appeared to fulfil prophecy — nor does it include the 
Messiah of the Christians, because the above list is taken 
from profane, or, more properly speaking, civil history, 
of which real men and real things only are the subjects, 
while sacred history, which tells us of the Christian Mes- 
siah, deals in shadows, legends, i.nd myths. 

If, as the Christians claim, their Christ was the great- 
est and most wonderful of all the Messiahs, why did he 
not find a place in profane or civil history, where we have 
full accounts of the lesser Saviors? What does all this 
mean? It certainly has a meaning, and a forcible one, 
too. Does it mean that the priesthood of Rome bor- 
rowed a pagan religion, and a century thereafter created 
out of nothing a Messianic Christ, as a rallying-point 
around which to gather the ignorant and superstitious 
multitude, to be used by the Church of Rome for its ag- 
grandizement, power, and dominion over the peoples 
and nations of the earth? How well they have suc- 
ceeded in this, let the history of the Dark Ages tell the 
tale, and count the millions of innocent men, women, and 
children who have been murdered by orders from the 
heads of the church. 

Further consideration of this branch of the subject will 
be had when we come to examine the writings concerning 
Christ. 

The Four Gospels and Other Christian Writings as 
Legends and Forgsries. 

The four gospels contain all the evidence the church 
has of the existence of Christ and of his sayings and do- 
ings, in other words, his complete biography. The 
church must in the future, as it has in the past, stand on 
these gospels for its religion and its founder; if these 



110 Commentaries on Hebrew 

fail, all to the church is lost. It has ever been claimed by 
the church that these gospels were written during the 
apostolic age, and by the four men to whom they are 
ascribed. 

While some few of the leaders of the church still insist 
or claim that some of the matters contained in our present 
gospels were reduced to writing near the close of the first 
century, all ecclesiastical historians of to-day admit that 
the gospels as we have them did not exist earlier than the 
first half of the fourth century; and, with a few excep- 
tions, all deny the existence of any writings whatever con- 
cerning the Christ, his sayings or doings, during the first 
century. The church being driven to the wall in search 
of Christian writings of the first century, finally falls back 
on the fourteen, so called, epistles of Paul, claiming that 
they must have been written in the first century, it being 
asserted by the church that Paul was born about lo A. C. 
But let it be remembered that ten of the fourteen so- 
called epistles of Paul have been, by the most sagacious 
critics of Germany and France, conceded to be spurious 
(forgeries). 

The real facts are that we have no knowledge as to the 
time of the birth of Paul, and as to the date of any alleged 
act of his the world of to-day is in blissful ignorance. 
See Renan's Paul, Professor White's "Warfare of Re- 
ligion and Science," Dr. Reich's ''History of Civiliza- 
tion," the American Cyclopaedia, and other works. 

It may be safely afBrmed that the weight of evidence is 
overwhelming, that not one scratch concerning Christ, or 
Christianity, was written for more than a hundred years 
after the alleged time of his death. 

It is on what Christ is supposed to have said in his 
preachings that the great church has been founded. As 



And Christian Mythology, 111 

to what his discourses were about, and what he said, 
much has been written and told, but very httle, or nothing 
whatever, is known. During the first century after 
his death, his disciples and followers were principally con- 
cerned in getting ready for his second coming, which was 
to be the end of the world and the final winding-up of all 
human affairs; they were too busy and too much en- 
grossed in this all-important matter to think or care to 
preserve the sayings of their master, or to think of estab- 
lishing a new religion. The whole effort of his disciples 
and followers consisted in oral preachings and declama- 
tions. 

Let a dozen intelligent men listen to a discussion, and 
then allow even five or ten years to elapse, and no two 
will agree, even as to the substance of the discussion. Let 
one hundred years elapse and then take the statements 
third- and fourth-handed, and from the most ignorant 
sources, and what would such evidence be worth? No 
court of justice would give it any weight whatever. Now 
this is the evidence, and the only evidence, on which the 
church rests and asks mankind to believe what Christ said 
in his one, two, or three years' preaching. The proposi- 
tion is simply ridiculous. It may be that, by the merest 
chance, the substance of some of the sayings of the man 
has come down to us. If so, this is all that can in fair- 
ness be expected. Most of the persons who are supposed 
to be contemporaries of Christ, and who heard him talk, 
were men of no education, rude and uncultivated. 

The Gospels as Seen by Some of the Eai-'y Fathers 
and Others. 

The gospels as they have come down to us were un- 
known to the early fathers, and such Christian writings 



112 Commentaries on Hebrew 

as they knew were not regarded by them as other than the 
works of ordinary men. The doctrine of inspiration was 
of later origin. Dr. Reich (a Greek and Latin scholar), 
in his "History of Civilization," says: 'Tn the second half 
of the second century, the writings were divided into two 
parts, known as the gospels and the Acts; that Papias, 
who died 176 A. C, never heard of the New Testament 
canon; that Justin Martyr (150) refers only to the first 
and third gospels; that Polycarp (150-160) speaks only of 
fragments of gospels, and treats them as of no special 
authority ; that no one knew or pretended to know where 
they came from; that the oldest manuscripts which have 
come down to our time are the Codex Sinaiticus, found 
in a convent at Mount Sinai, and the Codex Vaticanus, at 
Rome, both of the fourth century." 

Following in the general wake, Eichhorn says: 
"Giescler, De Wette, Ewald, Reville (all Christian 
writers) agree that the gospels were taken from tradition, 
and that Mark was made up principally from IMatthew 
and Luke." To the same effect see Encyclopaedia Bri- 
tannica. This last authority says : 'Trenaeus had a canon 
of his own, in which he ignored the epistles of the 
Hebrews, of Jude, of James, Second Peter and Third 
John; that Clement had a more extended collection, in- 
cluding some not in the present canon ; that Tertullian's 
canon differed from all others; Muratori had a frag- 
mentary canon, made up about 170, containing the four 
gospels, the Acts, the thirteen epistles of Paul, those of 
John and Jude, and the Apocalypse, and that some of the 
so-called epistles of Paul were then charged to be 
forgeries ; that the New Testament version used in Syria 
did not contain Second Peter, Second and Third John; 
that a canon near the end of the second centurv was 



And Christian Mythology. 113 

agreed to by a few of the church Bishops; that at the 
Council of Nice very Httle judgment was exercised in 
settHng the canon beyond the books generally established 
by custom, but that the canon was not finally settled until 
the fifth century." 

Sabinus, Bishop of Heraclea, affirms that, excepting 
Constantine and Eusebius, this council was made up of a 
lot of illiterate creatures, understanding nothing, and 
Pappus, in his synodicon to the council, says that all of 
the books referred to the council for determination were 
put under the communion-table, when the council asked 
God to take out the inspired ones and put them on the 
table, leaving the spurious ones under the table, and that 
it happened accordingly. 

The majority of modern critics, and they are many, 
after most thorough research, examination, and compari- 
son of the books with each other, have reached the con- 
clusion that the larger part of the writings, comprising all 
of the books of the New Testament, are forgeries by 
priests and monks, made in the interest of the church, and 
that the fourth gospel was written at a very late period. 

It is a well-established fact that these books were un- 
known to the world until the latter half of the third cent- 
ury, that they were made up from tradition and scraps 
of writing, picked up here, there, and everywhere in 
Christendom, mixed and mingled with forgeries of every 
kind, and that out of this heterogeneous batch of rubbish, 
the early fathers of the church selected what suited them, 
to which they added their own wishes and opinions, and 
thereby created a testament of the life of Christ and a 
code of religion. Many of the statements in these books 
are clear contradictions. 

It is said by as able an author as Professor Westcott, 



114 Commentaries on Hebreiv 

that three of the compilers of these books were in cor- 
respondence at Jerusalem long enough to compare and 
exchange notes. 

The books first appeared in Greek, while the language 
in Judea, where Christ did his talking, was Aramaic. 

They were translated into Saxon in 721 A. C, by 
Bishop Egbert. 

Gibbon says the history of the actions of Christ was 
composed in Greek during the reign of Nero and 
Domitian, in the cities of Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and 
Ephesus. As to this matter, see later authorities herein- 
after cited and quoted from. 

Gibbon, in speaking of the Council of Rimini, says that 
the edict seeming to cast suspicion on the Homoousion 
standard was obtained by fraud. 

The author of the notes to Gibbon in support of the 
text, says: "And this wicked conduct was not the excep- 
tion in this particular Council, but it was the established 
and universal custom. Creeds were invented and suc- 
cessfully established by means that would disgrace a mod- 
ern political caucus. Scriptures were interpolated, au- 
thorities were forged, the venal were purchased, and the 
ignorant were cajoled" in the interest of the church. The 
pious Tillemont says: "Without Eusebius we should 
scarcely have any knowledge of the history of the first 
age of Christianity;" and with him, it must be confessed 
that we have very little that is reliable. 

The devout Lardner, in speaking of Eusebius, says: 
"He had great zeal for the Christian religion," and it 
seems too bad for Christian writers to associate his name 
with Satan. 

Hormesdas, bishop of Rome 544 A. C, called Eusebius 
a forger. 



And Christian Mythology. 115 

It will be remembered that Eusebius was bishopi->of 
Caesarea, and that he has been characterized (very 
properly) as the father of ecclesiastical history. 

Christianity, to the devout, virtually hangs on the 
writings of this man Eusebius, whom so many of his fel- 
low-churchmen denounce as a forger and a fraud. 

Dean Milman, who censures Gibbon so severely for 
telling the truth about the church, expresses his regret 
that *'*the fine gold so soon became dim in the Christian 
church." Even the Emperor Constantine, after he had 
become a quasi-Christian, and after having put Eusebius 
in the Council of Nice, as a friend, in an address to the 
people of Nicomedia, accused him of deceit, fraud, and 
forgery as to the gospels. 

In his writings, Eusebius frankly admits that falsehood 
is justifiable in the interest of the church. He says the 
writings of Philo and the gospels are one and the same, 
that Christianity did not take its rise with Christ, that its 
doctrines are but the natural outgrowth of all good men. 

Even Pope Boniface IX., 1310 A. C, denounced 
Christianity as a fraud. He said Christ was but an ordi- 
nary man, that inspiration was a lie, that the whole 
Christian scheme was gotten up to control the vulgar and 
that all intelligent men knew this to be true. 

For these, and other similar sayings, Boniface was de- 
nounced as a heretic. After death his body was taken out 
of the grave and tried before his successor, Pope Clem- 
ent, sitting with a Council (see Draper's "Intellectual De- 
velopment of Europe"). 

Authorship and Time of the Writings, 

This brings us to the question of the authorship of these 
books, and the time when they were written or compiled. 



116 Commentaries on Hebrew 

T^e general belief, especially among the Christians, is 
that the books were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John. That Mark wrote in 44, Matthew in 44, Luke 
in 55, and John in 96 or 97 A. C. 

A few preliminary statements will be here first in order, 
when we will proceed to show by the highest and most 
reliable authority, how and when the four gospels and 
other New Testament writings came into existence. As 
before stated, there were no Christian writings during the 
first century. During that time the leading advocates of 
Christianity busied themselves in oral declamations con- 
cerning Christ and his second coming. Whatever was 
said concerning the new faith was called a gospel, for this 
was but another word for good tidings, so the early gos- 
pels were all oral. The bishops and other apostles picked 
up whatever they could hear concerning the new faith, 
proclaimed it aloud in their churches, in the streets and 
highways; this they continued to do until the beginning 
of the second century, when, becoming tired of waiting 
for the second coming of their Messiah, the Scribes com- 
menced to reduce to writing the declamations and preach- 
ings of the apostles and bishops. 

During the second century the new religion was pro- 
claimed over most parts of the Roman Empire, but, as a 
matter of course, the understanding by different men in 
different localities was very much at variance, no two 
seeing or talking alike. This talk or teaching, not being 
in perfect harmony, necessarily produced dissimilar writ- 
ings or gospels; but in many respects, and as to more im- 
portant matters, especially concerning the second advent, 
the differences were slight. At the end of the second cent- 
ury each church, especially the churches of the large 
cities, had its own gospels, and each great division of 



And Christian Mythology. Il7 

territory maintained certain gospels in common. The 
provinces of Asia had their gospels, known as the gospels 
of the East; while Europe had its general gospel, known 
as the Western gospel; and for Africa, Alexandria had its 
gospels. It is needless to say that, even between these 
three general gospels, as they existed before any attempt 
to harmonize them, there were wide differences. The 
three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, running in a general 
groove, were by reason of their resemblance called synop- 
tic; while the gospel of John, being of much later origin, 
and made to heal the strife between the Hebrew and 
pagan factions, necessarily stands out by itself. 

Attempts were made from time to time to bring to- 
gether and, as far as possible, harmonize these gospels by 
amendments, but complete reconciliation was found im- 
possible without a complete destruction of all, and the re- 
construction of one harmonious whole; but the spirit of 
strife was too fierce to permit of this, so the bishops, each 
conceding as little as possible and claiming all he could 
get, brought about the numerous Councils in which all 
the churches were represented. But even here strife was 
the rule, and harmony the exception; the contending par- 
ties resorted to all manner of intrigue, artifice, deception, 
and even force to accomplish their ends, bringing in 
bands of soldiers well armed to sustain their position. By 
this means some of the Councils acquired unenviable 
reputation. The Emperor Theodosius, in 449, called a 
Council to settle the gospels as to the status of Christ. 
The Council met at Ephesus, headed by Eutyches, who 
brought with him three hundred monks and a body of 
soldiers. As usual in such Councils, sedition reigned; 
the outcry of the monks, with the aid of the soldiers, 
settled matters, and Christ was decreed to consist of two 



118 Commentaries on Hehreiv 

persons. This Council received the name of the "Robber 
Synod," says the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

The famous Council of Nice, called by Constantine, the 
pagan Emperor, who sat at its head, convened 325 A. C. 
It was this Council that made a decree settling the gospels 
and other New Testament books. Notwithstanding this, 
the decree was resisted. 

We have but meagre accounts of the proceedings of 
this Council, owing to the fact that the fathers of the 
church, by order of the emperor, destroyed the records, 
and then denied that any records had been kept. 

If the records of this Council could have been pre- 
served and published to the world, disclosing the villany, 
fraud, and rascality of the Council, the church could not 
even in that age have survived the shock, and this the 
bishops and other leaders well knew; hence the destruc- 
tion and denial. 

The canon of the New Testament was again amended 
and ratified at the third Council of Carthage, 399 A. C, 
and further amended at the Council of Trent, 1545. At 
this Council purgatory was definitely established. Dur- 
ing all this time there was a continuous overhauling of 
the books by several of the bishops, who pruned to suit 
their own notions. 

The numerous Councils, by a majority vote, declared 
their bodies inspired. On the majority vote depended 
the question of inspiration or no inspiration. 

We now proceed to support our position as to the 
spurious character of the four gospels and other New 
Testament writings. 

The writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica says the 
Councils have been aptly called "the battle-ground of the 
church." There was no established creed until the 



And Christian Mythology. 119 

Council of Nice; prior thereto all had their own creeds. 
This Council made a decree settling forever the creed; 
but notwithstanding this, the creed was enlarged at the 
Council of Chalcedon, 451 ; and at the Council of Toledo, 
589, other changes were made. In speaking of the criti- 
cisms, this writer says that an influential school of critics 
hold that a large proportion of the New Testament books 
are direct forgeries; that, in fact, every book in the New 
Testament, except the four great epistles of Paul, is in dis- 
pute; that up to the middle of the second century, genuine 
and spurious books were used indiscriminately in some of 
the churches; and that the Council of Laodicea, in 360, 
prohibited the use of certain books believed not to be 
genuine. 

Alexandrian Codex or Bible, and Others. 

The oldest manuscripts that have come down to us are 
the Codex Sinaiticus, found in a convent on Mount 
Sinai, and the Codex Vaticanus, in the Vatican at Rome, 
both of the fourth century. Next comes the Codex 
Alexandrinus, which is the name given to a Greek manu- 
script of the Old and New Testaments now in the 
British Museum. It was brought from Alexandria by 
Cyrillus Lucaris, patriarch of Alexandria, and presented 
to Charles I. of England, in 1628. On the page contain- 
ing a list of the books of the Old and New Testaments 
appears an inscription in Arabic, which states that the 
manuscript was written by the hand of Martyr Thecla. 
There also appears on this document an inscription in 
Latin, written by Cyrillus himself, which says that Thecla 
was a noble Egyptian lady who lived shortly after the 
Council of Nice. Most critics, basing their opinion on 
the style of the writing and other evidence, conclude that 



120 Commentaries on Hehreio 

the manuscript was written about the middle of the fifth 
century, while some assert that it was written as late as 
the tenth century. The manuscript consists of four 
volumes of the Old and one of the New Testament. In 
the manuscript most of the Gospel of Matthew, a part of 
John, and a part of Chronicles are missing. The famous 
passage in I John v, 7, "For there are three that bear 
record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy 
Ghost, and these three are one," is now generally re- 
garded as a forgery. It appears from Cyrillus' endorse- 
ment, that the books of the Old and New Testament, as 
we have them from tradition, were written by this 
Egyptian lady, about 1,500 years ago, and a little after the 
Council of Nice, and that the name of Thecla was written 
at the end of the book, so says the American Cyclopaedia. 

The Council of Nice, it will be remembered, convened 
in 325, and adjourned 381 A. C. 

A writer in the Penny Cyclopaedia tells us that it ap- 
pears on the first page of Genesis, that the manuscript was 
dedicated to the patriarch of Alexandria. 

It will here be seen that we have the admission of the 
patriarch Cyrillus, that the books of the Old and New 
Testament were written from tradition. 

Query, where did this Egyptian lady get the materials 
from which to write this Bible? Did she derive her in- 
formation from tradition, or from older writings? And 
was she the first author or compiler of the Bible? And if 
so, did she get her inspiration in the atmosphere of oral 
communications, or did she take it second-hand from 
other writings? 

As Origen, after spending twenty-eight years of his life 
in picking up manuscripts, commenced to make a Bible of 
his own, at Caesarea in 331, and the publication of the 



And Christian Mythology. 121 

Bible containing the New and Old Testament first ap- 
peared in the fifth century, the question naturally sug- 
gests itself, who was guilty of plagiarism? Did the 
Egyptian lady steal Bishop Origen's scraps from which 
to make her Bible? or did the compilers and publishers of 
the fifth century commit piracy of Thecla's Bible? Prob- 
ably they were all inspired pirates. Such must be the 
case, for we are told that the whole Bible was written by 
inspired men, so this Egyptian lady must have been in- 
spired. At all events, the book took its origin in tradi- 
tion, i. e., it was handed down from one generation to 
another by word of mouth. 

We have no evidence that any part of the New Testa- 
ment was given to the world prior to this time. Baur 
informs us that at least three of the gospels were written 
in a crude form, from tradition, in the latter part of the 
second century; that the Gospel of John was written after 
that time, and that all four of the gospels were from time 
to time thereafter modified. This opinion of Baur is now 
accepted as true by all the ecclesiastical historians of 
Europe, but there is no evidence that these gospels were 
pubHshed until they went into and formed part of the New 
Testament, which, as before stated, was published in the 
fifth century ; nor have we any evidence that Origen ever 
published his Bible. In the absence of such evidence we 
must conclusively presume that the dates of these publica- 
tions were the first the world ever knew of these books. 

The writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us that 
the authors of the three synoptic gospels seem to have 
borrowed from each other, or that all took from a com- 
mon source. That Matthew and Luke borrowed from 
Mark, he says, has been clearly demonstrated. He also 
says that an original tradition existed before the three 



122 Commentaries on Hebrew 

synoptics, that some common document of Christ's say- 
ings existed before the narratives of Matthew and Luke, 
that other documents or traditions existed, that there is no 
internal evidence to determine the dates of the gospels, 
that Mark in many things includes the traditions from 
which Matthew and Luke borrowed, that the fourth gos- 
pel seems rather to be a poem or dream than a biography, 
that the spirit of Hebrew poetry runs through the whole 
record (quoting Westcott). The writer says that the 
earliest account of the fourth gospel is legendary; that 
there seems to be a joint authorship, or it was written by 
an amanuensis ; that the gospel is the active and manifold 
religious thought of Ephesus, to furnish the needed as- 
sistance to Christianity as an historical religion, again 
quoting Westcott. 

This writer, in speaking of Marcion, the Christian re- 
former, who lived in the second century, established a 
church, and had a large following, says that he, Marcion, 
charged the fathers of the church with fraud and forgeries 
as to the gospels. 

Lessing, in his- treatise of the gospels, tells us that the 
basis of all the gospels grew out of a written collection of 
the oral narratives of the apostles. 

By a comparison of the four gospels, says Strauss, none 
of them appear to be genuine ; their narratives are not the 
account of eye-witnesses, but were taken from frag- 
mentary notes of men who lived long after the events re- 
ferred to. They collected and made notes of speeches, 
private and public, and of all sorts of legendary tradi- 
tions, and embellished them by inventions of their own. 
This author further tells us that about the middle of the 
second century there were different versions of the gos- 



And Christian Mytltology. 123 

pels in a crude form, and that traces of them only are 
found in our present ones. 

Schleiermacher maintains that the four gospels were 
compiled from a number of disconnected documents; and 
Eichhorn, in his criticisms, says they came from tradition 
and that the written tradition was an Aramaic gospel. 

In his 'Tost-Apostolic Age," Schw^egler says the gos- 
pels were by the theological spirit of the age corrected, 
ofTensive matters stricken out and new matter inserted, 
and thus the church engaged in a continual production of 
evangelical speeches and sayings, till at last the gospel 
reform attained its finality in the exclusive recognition of 
our synoptic gospels. 

In his ''Lost and Hostile Gospels,'' Baring-Gould says 
that until the settlement of the canon, every church had 
its own gospel and knew Jio others ; that the first gospel of 
the Hebrews, in a crude form, was written in the intere^st 
of the Judaizing Christians about the middle of the second 
century. 

In Chambers' Encyclopaedia the writer says that it 
seems tolerably clear that, for at least a generation after 
the death of Christ, no attempt w^as made to reduce to 
writing any record, however brief, of the life of Christ or 
of his teachings. Oral traditions took the place of writ- 
ings, and from such the gospels were written ; that all of 
the gospels were taken from earlier writings and oral 
tradition. Finally, the Council of Carthage, in 397, sanc- 
tioned, for the West, our present gospels, made from: 
First, tjie neutral Alexandrian text; second, the written 
text brought to Rome from Syria; third, a non-written 
pre-Syrian text called Alexandrian; that the first text 
underwent numerous changes up to 200 A. C, and that 
the third, or Syrian, text, was modified up to 350 A. C. 



124 Commentaries on Hehreio 

This writer further says: "There were numerous versions 
of the New Testament, and parts of them were picked up 
all over the Roman world, all taken from tradition, and 
made up in the second, third, and fourth centuries. The 
Latin originated in Africa; its date is in the second cent- 
ury; this version had become so mutilated that it was 
revised in the third and fourth centuries. The gospels 
were completed about 338 A. C, and the whole New 
Testament soon thereafter." 

We will now offer in evidence the sayings of the Rev. 
Llr. McClintock, as taken from McQintock and Strong's 
"Cyclopaedia of Biblical and Ecclesiastical Literature," 
published in 1883. As this comes from high church 
sources and from a devout Christian, it should be undis- 
puted among the faithful. The writer, after saying that 
the canon of the Old Testament, in its present shape, was 
formed gradually, beginning with Ezra and extending 
down to 322 B. C, reluctantly adds: "The New Testament 
canon presents a remarkable analogy to the canon of the 
Old Testament. The beginnings of both are obscure; 
both grew silently, under the guidance of an inward in- 
stinct, rather than by force of external authority; both 
were connected with other religious literature by a series 
of books which claimed a partial and questionable 
authority; both gained definiteness in times of persecu- 
tions. All of the churches of the West joined in ratifying 
the canon of the New Testament ; each of the churches of 
the greatest ability collected for itself such writings as 
could be proven to have been the production of inspired 
men. These books were neither sanctioned by indi- 
viduals or councils, but by natural process." He further 
says : *The history of the canon may be divided into three 
periods. The first, extending to 170, includes the era of 



And Christian 3fythology. 125 

circulation and gradual collection of the apostolic writ- 
ings. The second is closed in 303, separating the sacred 
from other ecclesiastical writings. The third may be de- 
fined by the third Council of Carthage, 397 A. C, in which 
a catalogue of the books of the scriptures was formally 
ratified by conciliar authority. The first is character- 
istically a period of tradition, the second of speculation, 
and the third of authority, and we may trace the features 
of the successive ages in the course of the history of the 
canon. But however all this may have been, the com- 
plete canon of the New Testament, as we now have it, was 
ratified by the third Council of Carthage, 397 A. C, from 
which time it w^as generally accepted by the Latin church, 
some of the books remaining in doubt and disputed." The 
Council of Trent, 1543 to 1563, reformed the canon by 
adding all of the doubtful books, but did not settle the 
dispute. The writer concluded by saying, ''The writings 
of Ferdinand C. Baur and his followers contain valuable 
hints as to these books." 

Yes, valuable hints! as Baur characterized the four 
gospels, also several of the epistles, as forgeries. 

How hesitatingly and begrudgingly this Rev. McClin- 
tock is forced to admit that the Old and New Testament 
were taken from pagan religions, that they were of slow 
and gradual growth, by force of a natural, or internal in- 
stinct, and not by external (divine) authority. 

Just what this author means by the words ''internal 
instinct," in this connection, is not easy to determine. In 
any event, it is not by divine authority. 

This reverend gentleman, continuing, says: "Although 
the gospel was generally propagated in Asia, Europe, and 
Africa, there was no meeting of Christians to discuss 
mooted questions until the middle of the second century; 



326 Commentaries on Hebrew 

the four gospels, as one collection, were generally used 
and adopted before the end of the second century." 

In speaking of the numerous gospels afloat all over the 
Roman world, this writer says that some were at once re- 
jected, while many others, such as the Gospel or History 
of Joseph, of the Nativity of Mary, of the Infancy of 
Christ, of Nicodemus, etc., were classed as apocryphal; 
that in these gospels (which were rejected by the Protest- 
ants) one may find the most wonderful tales concerning 
the infant Christ; that the Gospel of Nicodemus, found 
among the records of Pontius Pilate, A. C. 380, gives a 
graphic and vivid picture of Christ's descent into hell to 
liberate the spirits of the damned. As to this more will 
be said further on. Among the church fathers who be- 
lieved and taught the story of Christ's descent into hell 
with the other apocryphal gospel stories, we find the 
names of Ignatius, Hermos, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Ter- 
tullian, Clement, Origen, Cyprian, Cyril, Ambrose, 
Jerome, Augustine, and Chrysostom. Those men used 
these apocryphal gospels in their attempt to prove the 
personal existence of their Christ, which at that time was 
freely denied. 

Let it be remembered that this gospel, like some of the 
other apocryphal writings, reveled in most glowing tales 
and picturesque scenes of the doings of Christ, and that, 
Hke all the other gospels, it had the same origin, rested on 
the same evidence, and was equally well authenticated. 

The substance of all of them came from pagan sources. 
The one as to Christ's descent into hell was undoubtedly 
borrowed from the Chaldean stor>' of the Goddess Ish- 
tar's descent into Hades. 

This writer reluctantly admits the conflict between the 
statement in the synoptic gospels and those of John's, 



And Christian Mythology. 127 

where, in the three gospels, it appears Christ's teachings 
were laid in Galilee, while in the fourth gospel they are 
laid in Judea and Jerusalem. 

In his ''Cradle of Christ," Frothingham says: ''Chris- 
tianity owes its entire wardrobe, ecclesiastical, symbolical, 
and dogmatical, to the religions that preceded it, differing 
but little from paganism." 

Huxley, in speaking of the gospels, says: "In my 
opinion it has been demonstrated that we have no knowl- 
edge of the authorship or of the date of the composition 
of the gospels as they have come down to us, and that 
nothing better than more or less probable guessing can 
be arrived at on that subject." 

And as to the Sermon on the Mount, on which so much 
stress has been laid by the Christians, in their efforts to 
prove the purity of their hero, the very gem in the con- 
stellation of their endeavor, it may be safely asserted that 
Christ never uttered the words found therein. On this 
question Professor Huxley says: "The Sermon on the 
Mount, as given in the first gospel, is in the opinion of the 
best critics, a mosaic-work of materials from different 
sources." He concludes by saying, "I do not understand 
that this statement is challenged." 

Professor Hottzmann, speaking of this matter, says 
"The Sermon on the Mount, as given in the first gospel, 
has been copied from a composition of Hebrew writings." 

Professor C. W. Shields, in his efforts to support 
Christianity, reluctantly admits that Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke tell irreconcilable stories as to the crucifixion. 

The Catharists, Waldenses, and Petrobrusians, Chris- 
tian sects, boldly asserted, says Renan, that the estab- 
lished religion was a motley system of errors and super- 
stitions, 



128 Commentaries on Hehreio 

Mosheim, an impartial ecclesiastical historian, in speak- 
ing of the Council of Nice, says: "The disputes carried on 
in this and other councils show the greatest ignorance and 
utter confusion of ideas; the will of the council was deter- 
mined by a majority vote, to secure which all manner of 
intrigues and impositions were resorted to, including 
bribery and violence, and it was deemed an act of virtue 
to deceive and lie in the interest of the church." 

Dr. Harnack, in the second edition of his "Criticisms," 
says that all of the so-called utterances of Christ were bor- 
rowed. 

As to the origin of the gospels, the writer in Chambers' 
Encyclopaedia sums up the situation as follows: That dur- 
ing the first generation all rested on tradition ; that shortly 
thereafter some unknown person commenced to write a 
collection of discourses, parables, predictions, and apho- 
risms in a loose way in Aramaic. About the same time 
Mark arranged, in Greek, his fragmentary recollections 
of what he had heard Peter say ; this he did not scruple to 
supplement with other hearsay stories. The two writers 
were mutually complementary, and an attempt was made 
to combine them. After the destruction of Jerusalem 
there was edited in Rome the present form of the second 
gospel, specially for the gentile Christians. At a later 
date, the third gospel was compiled, taken from or de- 
pendent on Mark and other writings and traditions. 
These three, being similar, have been characterized as 
synoptic. These gospels are not independent of each 
other. 

Jerome, Bishop of Antioch, near the close of the second 
century, attempted to harmonize the four gospels. About 
the middle of the third century, one Ammoriius, of Alex- 
andria, taking Matthew as a basis, commenced to adjust 



And Christian Mythology. 129 

the other three to it, from which Eusebius took the hint 
and gave all of them a general overhauling. The most 
far-reaching and conclusive evidence we have against the 
alleged authenticity of the four gospels and some epistles, 
comes from four great Christian leaders of the church, 
Ferdinand C. Baur, David F. Strauss, I. B. Bauer, and J. 
E. Renan. 

Ferdinand C. Baur, the founder, president, and dis- 
tinguished leader of the modern Tubingen school of 
theology in Germany, was born at Cronstadt, June 21, 
1792 ; died i860. A more profound scholar Europe never 
had. He was the author of numerous works, mostly of a 
theological character. When he published his criticisms 
on the four gospels, so successful was he that all Christian 
Germany, yes, all Christian Europe, was alarmed, says the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

It will be remembered that the corps of writers on that 
great work were stanch churchmen, blind to every- 
thing not in the interest of Christianity; but on such a 
work they found themselves forced to speak the truth 
when facts were too plain to be disregarded. 

In speaking of the gospels and other sacred writings of 
the Christians, Baur says : "The Epistles to the Colossians 
and to the Philippians, as well as the Acts of the Apostles, 
are spurious, and were written by the Catholic School 
near the end of the second century, to heal the strife be- 
tween the Jew and Gentile factions ; and the four gospels 
owe their origin to party designs ; our present gospels are 
not the earliest documents of the kind found by the 
church. Before them existed a primary cycle of evan- 
gelical traditions, known by different names, as the Gos- 
pel of the Hebrews, of St. Peter, of the Ebionites, of the 
Egyptians, etc. These gospels are spurious, and were 



130 Commentaries on Hebrew 

written during the second century, and no list of the New 
Testament books was made until 360 A. C. For two and 
a half centuries we had no Bible; the canon as it now 
stands was fixed by decree by Pope Innocent I., 405." 
In this decree the Pope threw out the books of the quar- 
rels, so says Schwegler, the biblical critic. 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica, being driven into a cor- 
ner, and after commenting on Professor Baur, grudg- 
ingly says: ''The four gospels remain in a shadow, but 
it is certain that the synoptic gospels took their present 
form only by degrees, and that while they have their root 
in the apostolic age, they are fashioned by later influ- 
ences and adapted to special wants in the early church. 
They are the deposits, in short, of Christian traditions 
handed down, first of all in an oral form, before being 
committed to writing in such a form as we now have 
them; and this is now an accepted conclusion of every his- 
torical school of theologians in England, no less than in 
Germany, conservative no less than radical, and is largely 
the result of the Tubingen investigations. It may have 
been understood before, but its historical significance was 
not appreciated. Baur's influence can not be overrated, 
his great genius and learning enabled him to read the 
meaning of certain features of primitive Christianity 
hitherto imperfectly discerned, and to point future in- 
quirers along the true road of discovery." 

Baur believed, and this is now the generally accepted 
opinion, that the four gospels and the other sacred books 
named by him were made after the middle of the second 
century, and after the Judaistic and Ebionistic parties had 
been consolidated into the Catholic Church. 

As the writings are traced to the Catholic school, which 
did not exist until after the consoHdation, they could not 



And Christian Mythology. 131 

have been written before the middle of the second cent- 
ury. 

The Rev. McCHntock, speaking of Ferdinand C. Baur, 
says: "For many years he devoted his great intellect to 
the subversion of the fundamental doctrines of Christian- 
ity; he was the founder of the Tubingen school of theol- 
ogy, which further developed his views and gained him 
a sad notoriety by its attacks on the authenticity of the 
New Testament; he denied the authenticity of all 
Pauline Epistles, except those of the Galatians, Corin- 
thians, and Romans." This writer further says: "The 
numerous works of Baur comprise a complete history of 
Ciiristianity, from its inception down to the present time ; 
and he leaves a great reputation for talent, breadth of 
view, and industry." 

What a commentary on Christianity, that this great 
man, reared in the faith and devoting his life to a study of 
the origin and source of its doctrines, should not only re- 
pudiate the church and its theories, on the ground that 
they were untrue, but that his facts and arguments were 
so irrefragable as to convince all the ecclesiastical histo- 
rians of Europe, who to-day adopt his facts and conclu- 
sions, carrying with them to all learned men the evi- 
dence of the near downfall of Christianity. 

In the comments of the Rev. McCHntock the whole 
story is told : Christianity and ignorance are one and the 
same. To be intelligent, and to be learned in the origin of 
Christianity, is t® repudiate it. 

David Frederick Strauss followed Baur. He was born 
at Ludwigsburg, Jan. 2y, 1808, was a student of theology 
at the Tubingen School, became professor and teacher of 
Latin and Hebrew at Maulbronn, was a great student of, 
and published numerous works on, theology. In 1834 



132 Commentaries on Hebrew 

and 1835 he published his two volumes of the "Life of 
Jesus," which, like the gospel works of Baur, created un- 
bounded fear among all Christians, both Catholic and 
Protestant. 

As this work is in all our libraries, where it may be had^ 
It is only necessary here to say that he reached the con- 
clusion that the four gospels are but legendary romance, 
that the names of their purported authors are forgeries, 
and that after a century or more of oral tradition various 
compilations were written. He treats the whole Christian 
story as a myth, a work of mere fiction invented by the 
fathers of the church. As to Christ, he says that after his 
death there gradually grew up marvelous tales concern- 
ing him, which were the spontaneous outgrowth of fiction. 

Next in order of these great scholars comes I. Bruno 
Bauer, born at Eisenberg, Sept. 6, 1809. Like Baur and 
Strauss, he was a theologian and the author of numerous 
works, mostly of a theological nature. 

In 1835 he pubHshedawork severely criticising Strauss' 
**Life of Jesus," but after further investigation, changed 
his views, followed Baur and Strauss, and maintained that 
the gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the principal 
Epistles of Paul were willful forgeries, written during the 
second century. He became so convinced of the fraudu- 
lent origin of Christianity that he deemed it the duty of 
the civil powers to suppress it. 

Joseph Ernest Renan, whose "Histor}^ of Israel" we 
have hereinbefore freely referred to, was a French philol- 
ogist, born at Treguier, Feb. 27, 1823, studied for the 
priesthood, was Professor of Hebrew in the College de 
France, and was by the government sent to Syria as sci- 
entist. He was the author of numerous works, among 
which were histories of Israel, of Paul, of the Apostles, 



And Christian Mythology. 183 

and his "Vie de Jesu." When this last work appeared, it 
created about the same sensation as did the works of 
Baur, Strauss, and Bauer. Renan's style is very pleasant 
and captivating, as soft and charming as that of a woman. 
Many of his statements are quasi-innuendoes ; he is so 
forcible, so convincing, and at the same time so gentle 
and smooth, that one never tires reading him. He holds 
up to view the contradictions and absurdities of the gos- 
pel writings, shows that they are not the works of their 
reputed authors, that they were written or compiled at a 
much later date, from oral tradition and from scraps 
picked up here and there, to which were added such mat- 
ters as the interest of the church called for. In short, that 
most of the New Testament writings are the result of for- 
geries and frauds. In the most gentle way, he points out 
the manner in which the silly and idle tales concerning the 
resurrection got into circulation, and notes the ignorant 
class which gives credence to them. 

These four men, in point of learning, more especially 
in ecclesiastical research, have no superiors, or even 
equals, in Europe. They have agreed that the four gos- 
pels (giving the life of Christ) were not written by their 
purported authors, that they were not written till the lat- 
ter part of the second century, that they were made up of 
scraps and oral tradition to suit the wants of the church, 
and that the names of the purported authors are forgeries, 
consequently the gospels are myths and frauds. This con- 
clusion they reached as to several of the other Christian 
sacred writings. 

This verdict has been approved and accepted by all of 
the ecclesiastical historians of England and Germany. 

This is unquestionably the death of Christianity with all 
ecclesiastical historians, soon to be accepted by all intelli- 



134 Commentaries on Hehreio 

gent Christians, leaving the more ignorant to follow the 
priestlet and die a slower death in the agonies of despair. 

It would seem that we might rest our case on this, but 
as we have further evidence, we will here ofifer it. 

John Tyndall says: ''We have the Canon of scriptures 
already arranged for us. But to sift and select these writ- 
ings from the mass of spurious documents afloat at the 
time of their compilation, was a work of vast labor, diffi- 
culty, and responsibility. The age was rife with forgeries ; 
even good men lent themselves to these pious frauds, be- 
lieving that Christian doctrine (which of course was their 
(doctrine) would be thereby quickened and promoted" 
He further says : "There are gospels and counter-gospels, 
epistles and counter-epistles, some frivolous, some dull, 
some speculative and romantic, and others not in the 
Canon which were of authority almost equal to that of the 
Canonical books." He further says : ''When arguments 
or proofs were needed, whether on the side of the Jewish 
Christians or of the Gentile Christians, a document was 
discovered which met the case, and on which the name of 
an Apostle, or of some authoritative cojitemporary of the 
Apostles, was boldly inscribed. The end being held to 
justify the means, there was no lack of manufactured tes- 
timony ; the Christian world seethed, not only with apoc- 
ryphal writings, but with hostile interpretations of writ- 
ings not apocryphal. Then arose a sect of gnostics, men 
who knew." Discord, strife, persecutions, banishment, 
and torture followed as usual. Tyndall exclaims : "With 
terrible jolts and oscillations, the religious life of the world 
has run down the ringing grooves of change ; a smoother 
route may have been undiscoverable. At all events, it 
was not discovered. One may have looked with despair 
on the excited passions and wasted energies which, after 



Jnd Christian Mythology. 135 

ages of strife, are shown to be mere fatuity and foolish- 
ness. Thus the theses which shook the world during the 
first centuries of the Christian era, have for the most part 
sunk into nothingness." 

Tyndall might with propriety have added that sev- 
eral of the forgeries were proven, but proof did not pre- 
vent a forged document from going into the Canon and 
thereby becoming one of the inspired writings, and that 
the civil arm of the government had to intervene on sev- 
eral occasions to prevent bloodshed. 

It frequently happened that an inspired document had 
to be amended so as to conform to other writings. 
Whether the document was or was not the work of an in- 
spired writer, depended on the majority vote of the Coun- 
cil. These Councils at the commencement of their pro- 
ceedings having voted themselves inspired, and thereby 
infallible, one would naturally have supposed that all of 
their delegates would have been of one mind, and have 
voted the same way. The fact that such was not the case, 
may be accounted for on the hypothesis that infallibility 
and inspiration were suspended as to the minority. 

It has been often asserted, and the assertion supportec^ 
with considerable proof, that after settHng the canonical 
status of the several books and writings, a final vote was 
taken on the aggregate, resulting in a majority of five, 
and that four out of the five were bribed. 

What a pity that the New Testament came so near be- 
ing defeated, and that its salvation rests on five votes, and 
that four out of the five who cast these votes should have 
been accused of receiving bribes for giving to the world a 
code of rehgion. As long as the number of the Gods 
could not, under the pagan rule borrowed by the Chris- 
tians, have exceeded three, the bribe-givers and bribe- 



136 Commentaries on Hebreio 

takers, under well-settled usage, ought to have been giver 
cabinet positions in heaven as a reward for estabUshing a 
system by which an army of priests and clergymen have 
been enabled to hold lucrative positions for nearly 190G 
years. 

The Rev. Dr. Robert Taylor, one of the ablest ecclesi- 
astical scholars and writers of the time, in his "Diegesis,' 
says: ''The resemblance between paganism and Chris 
tianity as taught in the first century, was so absolute as to 
deceive the most learned student of the two mythologies." 
Mosheim admits with reluctance that even in the third 
century the more intelhgent of the Christians could 
not see any difiference between the two. Eusebius 
himself, in speaking of the pagan religion, says: 
*'Our gospels are none other in substance than the 
sacred text used by the school of Philo." 'The 
early Christians so closely followed the teachings 
of Philo," says Mr. Taylor, "as to copy verbatim 
very much of his writings." This author further says : 
*'The copying covers the selfsame doctrine, rites, ceremo- 
nies, festivals, discipline, and psalms, and also the rules as 
to the bishops, priests, and deacons, the observances and 
claims to apostolic founders; in short, everything of the 
slightest importance practiced by the school of Philo was 
iollowed by the leaders of the early Christians." 

Let us bear in mind that Philo lived and wrote before 
Josephus, and at least fifty years before the first Christian 
writings, and when Christ, if such a person ever existed, 
says Dr. Taylor, was not over ten years of age. This 
author further says: "Here then we have in the writings 
of this philosopher and historian of unquestioned veracity, 
living and writing up an already established religious sys- 
tem, more than fifty years before the earliest dates that 



And Christian Mythology, 137 

Christian historians have assigned to any Christian docu- 
ment whatever, a complete system of ecclesiastical polity, 
its bishops, its hierarchy of bishops, its subordinate cler- 
gy, the selfsame scriptures, the selfsame allegorical meth- 
ods of interpreting these scriptures, the selfsame doc- 
trines, ceremonies, festivals, discipline, psalms, epistles, 
and gospels, in a word, everything and every iota of Chris- 
tianity." This author further says: 'Thilo, while partly 
following Plato, taught the immortality of the soul, the 
doctrine of the Trinity, the manifestation of a divine man 
who should be crucified, and the eternal rewards and pun- 
ishments of a future life." 

According to the Rev. Mr. Taylor, the Christians 
copied their entire religious system from the theoretical 
teachings of Plato as modified and improved by Philo. 
They also seem to have copied from Plato the story of 
the conception and birth of their Christ. Plato lived over 
400 years B. C, and for a long time after his death his fol- 
lowers worshiped him as one of the Gods. 

It was taught and believed that Plato was born of a 
pure virgin named Perictione, who had conceived by a 
touch of the God Apollo, and that Apollo had revealed to 
Ariston, to whom Perictione was betrothed, that Plato 
was his son. 

The Christian story is a good copy of the above, with a 
change of names only. Thus the whole outfit seems to 
be a borrowed concern. 

In speaking of the forgeries, Mr. Taylor says: "Euse- 
bius did not hesitate to write anything which would re- 
dound to the benefit of the church, nor to suppress any 
truth which seemed injurious to it." Eusebius, in lament- 
ing the unsettled condition of the creeds, says: "What 
was orthodox one day is heresy the next. We make 



138 Commentaries on Hebrew 

creeds at one time to be destroyed a little later, and in this 
our zeal, we are destroying each other." 

He might have added that the factions were constantly 
changing places with each other; that those who were 
hunted, banished, and tortured as heretics one day, be- 
came orthodox the next day, and in turn persecuted their 
opponents. 

Hudibras strikes the keynote by saying : 

"What makes all doctrines plain and clear? 
About two-hundred pounds a year. 
And that which was proved true before, 
Proved false again? Two hundred more." 

Le Clerc, in his "Criticisms of the Epistles," claims that 
he has proven beyond question that the Platonism of 
Philo was borrowed, and constitutes the foundation and 
the entire structure of Christianity. 

Basnage (Histoire des Juifs) has clearly shown that the 
theological works of Philo were composed before or 
about the time of the alleged birth of Christ. 

The Cross, the Trinity, and the Creed, Were of Pagan 

Origin, 

The Rev. Dr. Taylor, in speaking of the Christian sign 
of salvation, says: 'Tt should never be forgotten that the 
sign of the cross, for ages anterior to the Augustan era, 
was in common use among the Gentiles, that it was the 
most sacred symbol of Egyptian idolatry, that it has been 
found on most of the Egyptian obelisks, and that it was 
believed to possess all the devil-expelHng virtues which 
have since been ascribed to it by the Christians." The 
posts set up along the Nile, to which were attached cross 



And Christian 3Iythology. 139 

beams to indicate high-water mark, became objects of 
worship by the ignorant Egyptians. Jupiter bore a cross 
wdth a ram's horn, and Venus a cross wdth a circle. 

Rev. Mr. McChntock, in his Cyclopaedia, adds his sanc- 
tion to the above, by asserting that: "The cross was in 
general use as a sign of divinity and eternal life, among 
several ancient nations. It was used in the Temple of 
Serapis, and found in the hands of Isis, Iseris, and other 
divinities; it was found by Laird on the sculptures of 
Korsbad and Nimroud, it was carved on the walls of the 
temples of India, and was in common use among the 
Britons, Gauls, Scandinavians, and Phoenicians; and the 
early use of the cross among the Christians was emble- 
matic of the vine, the fish, and the lamb.'' 

From the time of Constantine to near the close of the 
sixth century, the Christian cross bore the emblem of a 
lamb, which became an object of worship by the faithful 
until 680, when by a decree of the general Council of Con- 
stantinople, the image of a man was substituted and the 
further use of the sheep was prohibited. 

These signs seem to indicate that there never was a real 
man crucified. The lamb, the vine, and the fish, accord- 
ing to the Rev. Mr. McClintock, were emblematic of sal- 
vation and eternal life. Such was the use to which the 
cross w^as put by nearly all the pagan nations. 

When the Christians copied and adopted the pagan 
rules, practices, ceremonies, and religions, they also 
adopted the cross, and thereby designed its use to be the 
same as with the pagan nations. 

As to the Trinity, Dupin("BibliothequeEcclesiastique") 
says: ''The word triad, or trinity, was borrowed from 
the pagan schools of philosophy, and introduced into the 
theolosfv of the Christians of the middle of the second 



140 Commentaries ari Hebrew 

century, by Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch." The trinity of 
Plato, says the author of the notes to Gibbon, was closely 
followed by Philo and St. John ; and the idea of the three 
persons forming one essence or trinity in the Platonic 
philosophy is precisely the same as that in the Christian 
theology. Among the early Christians, the Arian faction 
accused the orthodox party of borrowing their trinity 
from the Valentinians and Marcionites, so says Beau- 
sobre (''Histoire du Manicheisme"). 

Among the fathers of the church, a dispute arose as to 
the third person who should go in the make-up of the 
triad, a respectable minority insisting that Mary should 
have the place, but the matter was compromised by giving 
her a position at the right hand of her son, and assigning 
the third place to the Holy Ghost. 

Mr. Taylor, in speaking of the Eclectics, who had their 
school at Alexandria, says : *'The most indubitable testi- 
monies prove that their philosophy was in a flourishing 
state at the period assigned to the birth of Christ, that the 
Eclectics were the same as the Therapeuts, or Essenes of 
Philo, and in every rational sense that can be attached to 
the word, they are the real authors and founders of Chris- 
tianity." 

The disciples of Plato, says Augustine, admitted the be- 
ginning of the Gospel of St. John as containing an exact 
transcript of their own principles. 

Origen, one if not the most distinguished of the early 
Christian leaders and writers, was born 184 and died 257 
A. C. He taught that Christianity and paganism were 
one and the same, with a comnion source. 

The pious Lardner says of Origen: "He undoubtedly 
was the most distinguished, wisest, greatest, and best man 
that was ever engaged in promoting Christianity." 



And Christian Mytltology, 141 

Mr. Taylor says of him that he was the first author who 
gave us a distinct catalogue of the New Testament : 'The 
sacred text owes its felicity to the criticisms and emenda- 
tions of Origen, who pruned excrescences, exscinded the 
most glaring contradictions, inserted whole verses of his 
own pure ingenuity and conjecture; and diligently 
labored, by claiming for the whole a mystical and alle- 
gorical sense, to rescue it from the contempt of the wise, 
and to moderate its excitement on the minds of the vul- 
gar." This author further says: 'Tt is not to be denied 
that this wisest, greatest, and best man that ever bore the 
Christian name, relapsed at last into paganism, and wor- 
shiped the idols of his ancestors." 

The reason why Origen renounced Christianity after a 
life spent in its support may be told as follow^s : 

Celsus, one of Rome's greatest historians and most pro- 
found reasoners, during the reign of Hadrian, 117 to 138 
A. C, pubHshed two books of criticisms on Christianity, 
in which he clearly demonstrated the absurdity of the 
Christian doctrines and claims. Following which, and as 
a matter of history, he proved, from Christian sources and 
church documents, that Mary procured a divorce from 
her husband, and while wandering about Judea, fell in 
love with a Roman soldier by the name of Panthera, who 
was the real father of Christ ; that the boy, being in desti- 
tute circumstances, went down into Egypt to procure 
employment; that while there he fell in with Egyptian 
jugglers, from whom he learned the art of working pre- 
tended miracles; that on his return to Judea he set up a 
claim to the Messiahship, which he supported by his 
Egyptian system of miracle-workings, and that his al- 
leged miracles were performed privately in out-of-the- 



142 Commentaries on Hebrew 

way places, to slaves, women, and children, of the most 
ignorant class. 

In the original Talmud the name of Christ several times 
appears, where he is always spoken of as the son of Pan- 
thera. 

Celsus was a pagan author of the highest order, who 
had within his grasp all the then obtainable evidence per- 
taining to the church and its founder. While Celsus ex- 
pressed serious doubts as to the real existence of Christ, 
but assuming on church authority or claims that such a 
man did live, he, Celsus, presented his facts from church 
sources so clearly, and made his arguments so forcible 
and conclusive, as to put the church on the defensive. 
Many of the most able writers came to the rescue, and 
among them Origen, whose attacks were conducted with 
his usual force and skill; but in the end, instead of con- 
verting the followers of Celsus to Christianity, he himself 
became convinced that Christianity was not only absurd 
in theory, but false in fact and founded on fraud, of which 
the fathers of the church were the authors. 

Having been convinced of all this, Origen was too hon- 
est, too frank, and too sincere to continue an advocate of 
so false a system. So he renounced the faith and returned 
to the philosophical teachings of the old Platonic school. 

The Apocryphal and Lost Gospels, 

From what has hereinbefore been shown we have 
learned about when and from what source came the writ- 
ings now contained in the Bible, and we have also learned 
that a large majority of the so-called sacred writings were 
finally rejected by councils and authors and compilers of 
the Bible. Many of these rejected writings have entirely 
disappeared. Among the lost ones, we have a list, now 



And Christian Mythology. 143 

known to us only through the works of commentators. 
But there is still a large list now extant, generally known 
as apocryphal, to each of which has been attached the 
name of some supposed author, a name said to be falsely 
ascribed — forged, these documents being characterized 
as pseudepigraphous. We find sixteen Old Testament 
documents not in the Bible, which are now lost, and eight- 
een such documents, denominated apocryphal, now ex- 
tant. 

As to the New Testament Christian writings, we find 
sixty-seven lost documents which were commented upon 
during the first four centuries, and forty-two such writ- 
ings generally characterized as apocr3^phal, which have 
come down to our time. As the names or titles of these 
documents seem a little odd, for the edification of the de- 
vout, we here append a few of them. 

Among the lost documents we find an Epistle of Christ, 
some books under the name of Christ, an Epistle of 
Christ to Peter, also one to Paul; a Hymn of Christ, a 
Gospel of Eve, a Gospel of Judas Iscariot, a Gospel of 
Matthias, a Tradition of Matthias, a Gospel of Nazarenes, 
a Gospel of Paul, a Revelation of Paul, a Gospel of Per- 
fection, a Gospel of Peter, Revelation of Peter, a Gospel 
of Titian, a Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, etc. 

Among the extant apocryphal writings, we find letters 
of Abgarus to Christ and Christ's answer thereto ; a Gos- 
pel of Pilate, Apprehension of Pilate, Death of Pilate, 
first Epistle of Pilate, the Descent of Christ into Hell, etc. 

It must be remembered that the above list comprises 
only a few of the numerous documents which went to 
make up the pile of debris, or rubbish, out of which the 
New Testament writings were selected, and it must not 
be forgotten that all of these writings had the same 



144 Commentaries on Hebrew 

origin, and were entitled to equal credit — all founded on 
tradition, i. e., idle stories afloat, handed down from 
mouth to mouth, each new recipient, on re-telling the 
story, giving his own version and rounding off the tale 
with such new matters as were Hkely to be most edifying 
to the listener. 

A few extracts from the apocryphal gospels will now 
be in order, which we take from William Nones' 
Apocryphal New Testament. 

The Gospel of Nicodemus, 

Opening scene : A great light appeared in hell. Simon 
arrives. Satan notifies the prince of hell to prepare to see 
Christ on the threshold, admits to the prince that he got 
up the accusation that brought Christ to trial and death. 
Then follows a quarrel between Satan and the prince of 
darkness over the threatened invasion of Hades by Christ. 
While the quarrel is in full blast, ''on a sudden there is a 
voice as of thunder and the rushing of winds, saying, Lift 
up your gates, O ye prince, and be ye lift up, O everlast- 
ing gates, and the King of Glory shall come in." The 
prince becomes alarmed and orders Satan out to take sides 
with Christ. No sooner is Satan out than the prince shuts 
and fastens the brass gates, and orders his ofificers to pre- 
pare to defend their abode. The devil's saints now trem- 
ble and implore the prince to open the gates and let the 
King of Glory in. Here David and Isaiah come into the 
play and notify the imps of darkness that they had fore- 
told all these things, that the dead and damned should live 
again. 

Isaiah says: "Did I not in my prophecy say, O death 
where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory?" Hear- 
ing this, all the saints call aloud to the prince to open the 



And Christian Mythology. 145 

gates and save himself from being taken prisoner. The 
prince wants to know who it is that makes this imperious 
demand. David answers and says, It is the King of Glory, 
who has come to release the damned. David here gets 
into a temper and calls out, saying: 'Thou filthy and 
stinking prince of hell, open thy gates that the King of 
Glory may enter in, for he is the Lord of heaven and 
earth." Now the Lord appears in the form of a man and 
lights up the pit of darkness, walks in, and at once breaks 
the fetters which have so long held the descendants of 
Adam in prison. The officers of hell are seized with fear 
and call to know who this invader is, and why he has come 
to loosen the chains of the damned and light up the re- 
gions of darkness. "Then the King of Glory, trampling 
upon death, seizes the prince of hell, deprives him of all 
power and takes Adam with him to glory." 

Here the scene changes. The prince upbraids Satan for 
bringing Christ to hell, and says to him that Jesus has 
opened hell and released all the prisoners. '*0 Satan, 
prince of the wicked, keeper of the infernal regions, all the 
advantage which to thou did accrue by the forbidden tree 
and the loss of Paradise, thou hast now lost by the wood 
of the cross." 

While this wrangle is going on Christ says to the 
prince: "You shall now be subject to the dominion of 
Satan forever, in the room of Adam and his righteous 
sons, who are mine." The scene in hell here closes, when 
"Jesus stretches forth his hand and says. Come to me, all 
ye my saints, who were created in my image, who were 
condemned by the tree of the forbidden fruit and by the 
devil and death." By this he declares death to be con- 
quered. All here join hands, Christ makes the sign of the 
cross on Adam, takes him by the hand, all then join hands 



146 Commentaries on Hebrew 

and leave the prince of darkness the sole occupant of hell. 
Christ here turns Adam and his posterity over to Michael, 
the archangel, when they meet Enoch and Elijah and the 
two thieves who died with Christ. 

The Gospel of the Infancy of Christ, 

In this gospel it appears that the mother gave birth to 
Christ in a cave at Bethlehem, attended by a midwife, 
after which she is presented with valuable gifts by great 
men. In turn she gives them one of the child's swaddling 
cloths, which cures all their infirmities. At the bidding of 
an angel, Joseph takes the mother and son down into 
Egypt, where they roam about from town to town per- 
forming wonderful cures. All afflicted persons who 
fondle or touch the infant are at once cured of maladies. 
While stopping at an inn, the mother washed and hung 
out to dry a swaddHng cloth of the baby. A poor fellow 
nigh unto death and filled watli devils, accidentally runs 
his head against the piece of linen and is at once cured, 
and all the devils are seen to rush out of his mouth. Wher- 
ever the triad go all of the great men and even the idols 
fall down and worship the babe. A girl afflicted with 
leprosy was instantly cured by touching one of the child's 
dirty linens. This child caused a plentiful supply of water 
to gush out of a tree. After the return of the triad to 
Judea, Christ in play with other children performed such 
wonders that he got the title of king ; he made mud cattle 
and birds and caused them to run and eat and the birds to 
fly. When his father made mistakes in his work and got 
his doors, gates, and windows too short, the child at a 
touch gave them the proper length. In play, a boy ran 
against Christ and knocked him down : when on his feet 



And Christian Mythology. 147 

again, he threatened the boy that when he went down he 
never would rise again ; the boy fell down and died. 

In short, Christ's whole life from the cradle is one of 
miracles. 

Of the fourteen epistles contained in William Nones' 
"x\pocryphal New Testament," the author says that Arch- 
bishop Wake (the translator) tells us that they contain a 
full and complete collection of all the genuine writings 
that remain to us of the most primitive apostolic fathers, 
that can with any certainty be depended upon. In the 
number he is mistaken, for we have forty-two. Assuming 
this to be true, we ask why they were rejected? The 
answer is obvious. They proved too much for the success 
of the church. 

And why was the Gospel of Nicodemus rejected? It 
was one of the earliest gospels. Did it, too, prove too 
much? Was it rejected because it was not in the interest 
of the church to propagate the doctrine that those who 
died before Christ and the church existed were saved? 
This reason, to say the least, is plausible and in full accord 
with the acts of the church. After this gospel had been 
used and believed in by the church until the close of the 
fourth century, it ought to have found a place in the 
Canon. It is so full of dramatic life, its scenes are so delight- 
fully portrayed, it would have afiforded such a field for the 
display of pent mythological energy and eloquence, as 
well as supremely edifying to the devout listener. What 
a clapping of hands would have followed the portrayal of 
Christ's taking Adam by the hand and leading him out of 
hell, followed by the countless millions of liberated souls, 
joining hands in a string, Hke a rosario, all marching out 
of the realms of darkness to join the saints in eternal 



148 Commentaries on Hebrew 

glory, leaving the poor devil solitary and alone until the 
arrival of the next crop of unbelievers. 

What Do We Know of Peter and the Apostles ? 

Peter Simon, or Simon Peter, or Symeon are different 
names applied to the founder of the dynasty of the long 
line of popes. 

Matthew, Mark, and Luke differ as to his nativity, and 
the accounts of his discipleship are as various. 

The ''Acts of Peter" have been shown by Baur, 
Schwegler, Overbeck, Zeller, and others to be spurious. 
Peter, Paul, and Simon Magus are very much mixed up , 
they are believed by some critics to be legendary charac- 
ters. Peter and Paul are traced, in New Testament writ- 
ings, to Antioch, where a quarrel takes place between 
them, "which is the last that is certainly known of Peter" 
(Encyclopaedia Britannica). ''Tradition assigns Peter to a 
violent death." But of the time and place of his death we 
know nothing. Nothing more is said about him for over 
a hundred years, when Clement of Rome barely alludes 
to a Peter, claimed to be the Apostle. 

Toward the close of the second century, tradition asso- 
ciates Paul and Peter as the founders of a church at 
Corinth, and takes them from there to Rome, where they 
found a second church. 

This tradition seems to have originated with Eusebius 
and Irenaeus. The Muratorian Fragments of the second 
century refer to the martyrdom of Peter. A second and 
a third tradition pick up Peter and dispose of him in differ- 
ent ways. 

One tradition finds Peter working at Antioch, at Baby- 
lon, and among the barbarians at the north of the Black 
sea, while the other takes him to Rome and then inextri- 



A7id Christian Mythology. 149 

cably mixes him up in the legendary character of Simon 
Magus. The Jewish and gentile factions, in the second 
century, constructed a legend of romance making Peter 
the hero, and Paul, as Simon Magus, a false apostle (see 
Encyclopaedia Britannica). 

All of the legends and historical romance concerning 
Peter originated late in the second century, doubtless 
among the church fathers who borrowed their materials 
from the alleged writings of the apostolic fathers. As the 
writings of the apostolic fathers have been proven to be 
forgeries, as we will herein show, the legends and romance 
founded thereon necessarily fall to the ground, leaving us 
without any evidence whatever that such a man as Peter 
ever lived. 

The Tweive Apostles. 

It will be remembered that the Catholic church claims 
that Christ selected only Peter, and that Peter selected the 
other Apostles. 

Of the history of the Apostles, says the writer in the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, "we have almost no authentic 
knowledge beyond what is stated in the New Testament." 
As all of the New Testament writings touching the 
Apostles have been proven to be forgeries, we are left with- 
out any knowledge whatever that any Apostles were ever 
appointed or that any single one of the alleged twelve ever 
existed. Unreliable tradition and legends come to their 
aid. 

The Apostolic Fathers and Their Writings. 

''Apostolic fathers" is the name given to certain Chris- 
tian writers of the earliest period of Christianity of whom 
it was believed, and maintained by the church, that they 



150 Commentaries on Hebreio 

were contemporaries and associates of the twelve 
Apostles, and that their writings were of the first century-. 
There were five of them: Clemens Romanus, Ignatius, 
Polycarp, Barnabas, and Hermas. 

Of Clemens Romanus, nothing whatever outside of 
vague tradition is known. Of his birth, Hfe, and doings 
we have nought but conjecture. Eusebius, who is never 
reliable, claims for the episcopate of Romanus the years 
93 to loi. Romanus' writings, as claimed by the church, 
consist of one epistle from the Roman church to the 
Corinthian, urging a peaceful settlement of affairs. Dio- 
nysius is the first to assign the authorship of this epistle to 
Romanus, and gives it date at 96 or 97 A. C. But the crit- 
ics deny this authorship and pronounce the epistle a 
forgery of the latter half of the second century. 

As to Ignatius, Eusebius, who was always ready to 
suppress the truth when against the church and to falsify 
in its favor, says, as the story goes, Ignatius suffered 
martyrdom 73 to loi A. C. Origen, the most reliable of 
tlie church fathers, refers to this tradition and places 
Ignatius' death at 109 A. C. Jerome places Ignatius 
among the disciples of John. All that is really known or 
claimed to be known of him comes through disputed 
epistles. Even Eusebius, in his day, pronounced eight 
out of the fifteen epistles ascribed to Ignatius, forgeries. 
Bunsen, Baur, and numerous other critics dispute the gen- 
uineness of all of these epistles, and say they were written 
in the second and third centuries. The writer in Cham- 
bers' Encyclopaedia says that all of the epistles ascribed to 
Ignatius are now universally recognized as bare for- 
geries. 

Of the time, place of birth, and death of Polycarp little 
or nothing is known. The writer in Chambers' Ency- 



And Christian Mythology. 151 

clopaedia thinks Polycarp was born about 69 and 
suffered martyrdom about 155 A. C, and that he was bish- 
op of Smyrna. The only writing that can now be ascribed 
to Polycarp is, says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a 
letter or epistle to the Philippians; and this letter the 
Tubingen school says is not genuine. 

As to Barnabas, nothing whatever is known of him. 
There has come down to us a work called the epistle of 
Barnabas, generally ascribed to him by the early fathers. 
"The internal evidence is conclusive against its genuine- 
ness," says the writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
There is no clew to its date; some assign it to 119 and 126 
A.C. 

The writer in Chambers' Encyclopaedia says that the 
epistles of twenty-one chapters ascribed to Barnabas bear 
the strongest internal evidence of being an Alexandrian 
forgery of the second century made to strengthen the 
church. 

As to Hermas, when and where he was born and died 
we have no evidence. 

As to his writings, "The Pastor of Hermas," a book 
ascribed to him, has come down to our time and is believed 
to have been written about 140 to 150 A. C. The modern 
critics tell us that the book is fictitious in form and that 
tliere is no good reason for supposing that the author 
intended to introduce any real character into it. The name 
of Christ does not appear in it. Irenaeus and Clement 
quote the book as inspired. The writer in the Muratorian 
Fragments concludes that Hermas wrote the book about 
the middle of the second century (see Chambers' Encyclo- 
paedia). In concluding this branch of our inquiries we 
would say that as our information concerning the apostol- 
ic fathers comes onlv from their alleged writings, which 



152 Commentaries on Hebrew 

have been shown to be forgeries ('The Pastor of Hermas" 
excepted), we are left without any evidence that any of 
these men ever hved (excepting, possibly, Hermas). 

Thus it seems that the church was engaged in the gen- 
eral occupation of forging documents to prop up and 
support its false claims to a pernicious system of religion 
during the second, third, and fourth centuries. 

On the foregoing evidence the case stands thus: Christ 
a myth; the twelve Apostles shadows; Peter a fiction; 
Paul a sphinx; the apostolic fathers ideal beings; their 
alleged writings forgeries; the New Testament writings 
spurious; the church a gigantic fraud. 

Is it any wonder that the church, as long as it had the 
power, put to death all persons who attempted to investi- 
gate its origin? 

Apollonius of Tyana. 

Did the Christian fathers steal the biography of this 
man Apollonius, and attach to it a mythical head called 
Jesus Christ? It is so charged by respectable authority; 
while on the other hand, some learned Christian writers 
charge plagiarism on Apollonius, or on his biographer, 
Philostratus. 

In all the writings concerning this man, including the 
English and American Encyclopaedias, it is conceded that 
Apollonius was a real man, a Cappadocian, born about 4 
to 6 years B. C, a man of great learning, a sage, a teacher, 
and a disciple of Pythagoras, and that he traveled all over 
the Roman world and into China and India. By the same 
authority it is also admitted that one Damis became his, 
Apollonius', life companion, traveled with him as his 
amanuensis, taking notes of his master's sayings and do- 
ings, and that Philostratus, a Grecian historian, born 



And Christian Mythology. 153 

about i8o A. C, at the request of the Emperor Septimus 
Severus or his wife, wrote the hfe of Apollonius at the be- 
ginning of the second century. And by the same authori- 
ties it is conceded that Apollonius did perform what ap- 
peared to be miracles, similar to those credited to Jesus 
Christ, such as healing the sick, opening the eyes of the 
blind, raising the dead, etc., and that he performed these 
things, not by any pretended divine authority, but by 
force of power within himself and as a philosopher. All 
of this has been conceded by Christian writers, and that 
the life of Apollonius, as written by Philostratus, runs in 
most respects in the same grooves and parallel with the 
life of Christ as given in the four gospels , and that the mir- 
acles, or seeming miracles, are substantially alike in 
the two cases. The dispute arises where the claim 
to the genuineness of the miracles comes in, and as to 
which of the parties was guilty of plagiarism, or, in 
other words, stealing the biography of the other party. 
This must be determined to some extent by the age or 
time when the four gospels and Philostratus' history were 
written and published to the world, for neither party can 
be supposed to have knowledge of the writings of the 
other until their publication. 

We will now proceed to show that Philostratus wrote 
and published his biography of Apollonius in the early 
part of the third century, and that the four gospels were 
unknown for a long time thereafter. That these gospels 
are spurious has elsewhere been shown. 

It will be first in order to show what the authorities 
have to say about Apollonius. The pious Cudworth 
charges the pagans with procuring Philostratus to write 
up the pretended miracles of Apollonius as a parallel to 
those of Christ. The Rev. Dr. Parker, of England, in 



164 Commentaries on Hebreio 

l68i frequently admitted that Apollonius was a great 
man, who worked apparent miracles to the surprise of the 
most learned of men. 

The writer in Encyclopaedia Britannica says that Apol- 
lonius was a Pythagorean philosopher, born at Tyana 
shortly before Christ; that he traveled over Asia; that the 
greatest reverence was paid to him everywhere, especially 
by the priests; that in Greece and Rome he astonished the 
magistrates by curing the sick and raising the dead ; that 
he was worshiped for centuries after death, and that his 
statue was placed among those of the Gods. 

The writer in the ''Cyclopaedia of Biblical and Ecclesias- 
tical Literature," a devout Christian, reluctantly says of 
Apollonius, after calling him an impostor, that he w^as 
born at Cappadocia about 4 years B. C; that he studied 
with Pythagoras, traveled all over the Roman world, 
went to India and China; that he obtained vast influence 
among the learned men; that he died, with a reputation 
of sanctity, in the first century; that about one and a 
quarter centuries after his death, 210 A. C, in the reign of 
Septimus Severus and at the request of the emperor's 
wife, Philostratus, from the notes of Damis, wrote the life 
of Apollonius, and thereby paved the way for the general 
reception of the story among the cultivated classes of 
Rome and Greece ; that the memoirs of Apollonius are in 
so many points a parody on the life of Christ ; and that the 
annunciation of his birth to his mother, the chorus of the 
swans which sang for joy on the occurrence, the casting 
out of devils, raising the dead, healing the sick, the sudden 
disappearance and reappearance of Apollonius, the voice 
which called him at death, and his claim to be a teacher, 
with authority to reform the world, form some of the 
points of similarity. 



And Christian Mythology. 155 

Rev. Mr. McClintock, in saying that Philostratus wrote 
the history of Apollonius from the notes of Damis, sup- 
pressed part of the truth, to wit, that it appears on the 
face of the history that the author used not only the notes 
of Damis, but also numerous letters written by Apollo- 
nius, which were found in the palace of Emperor Hadrian, 
also narratives written by Maximus,a friend and associate 
of Apollonius. Philostratus not only took his authority 
from original writings, but wrote by request of the 
emperor's wife, as he was a confidant of the emperor; 
while the materials used in the four gospels, giving the 
life of Christ, were handed down by tradition for a cent- 
ury, and then taken third-, fourth-, and fifth-hand from 
unknown sources, and written by unknown authors. On 
this state of the case, who can doubt that the history of 
Apollonius is entitled to more credit than the history of 
Christ? 

In the early part of the fourth century, 306 A. C, Hier- 
ocles, then Governor of Alexandria, wrote two books 
against Christianity, in which he showed that the script- 
ures by their own contradictions destroyed themselves, 
and maintained that Apollonius excelled Christ in mir- 
acles. To these criticisms Origen replied with eight books, 
reviewing the life of Apollonius, in which he does not 
question the sources or credibility of Philostratus' history, 
or pretend that it was taken from Christian sources. 

Agfain, what object other than to procure a true history 
could the emperor or Philostratus have had? On the 
other side, the Christian leaders had every interest to sus- 
tain their claim, as their power and dominion depended 
on it. Let it be remembered that elephants do not follow 
in the footsteps of mice. 

Now as to the two men who performed the miracles — or 



156 Commentaries on Hebreio 

the things which then appeared to be miracles, for no real 
miracle ever was performed: 

Apollonius was a learned man, a great philosopher, a 
teacher, and an associate of the greatest and most learned 
men of Rome ; and it was in the presence of these great 
and influential men, including the magistrates, that 
Apollonius performed his miracles; while on the Christian 
side the man Christ was of mean, obscure birth, a carpen- 
ter by trade, could neither read nor write, and was the 
companion and associate of ignorant fishermen in the 
most uncultivated province of the Roman Empire. And 
as to his miracles, or seeming miracles, they were per- 
formed in out-of-the-way places in the presence of boys, 
slaves, and ignorant old women. 

Philostratus wrote his history of Apollonius in the early 
part of the third century, 210. It has been shown that the 
Christian gospels, even in a crude, unfinished state, did 
not exist earlier than the latter half of the third century, 
and in all probability, according to the weight of author- 
ity, were unknown to the world until a much later date, 
some authors say as late as the fourth or fifth centuries. 
But taking the earliest date, the latter half of the third cent- 
ury, as the time when the gospels, or life of Christ, first 
appeared in an unfinished state, the history of Apollonius 
is fifty years older than the history of Christ, and as the 
earlier could not borrow or steal what did not exist, it fol- 
lows as a necessary deduction that, if there was any bor- 
rowing or pirating, it was the Christians who plagiarized 
or stole the writings of Philostratus and applied to them a 
mythical head. 

It will also be remembered that we have conclusively 
shown that the four gospels were taken from pagan leg- 
ends. But whatever be the truth, the life of Christ, as 



And Christian Mythology. 157 

given in the four gospels, might have been copied or taken 
in whole, or in part, from Plato, Philo, Apollonius, or 
Pythagoras, or from the pagan religions of India, China, 
or Persia. The probabihty is, that the Christians bor- 
rowed from all of them, including some things from the 
Hebrews and Romans. On this point the pious Mr. 
McClintock says: 'The stories told by historians, of 
Plato, of Severus TulHus, of Pythagoras, of Alexander, of 
Scipio Africanus, of Apollonius, of Buddha, and of others 
follow closely the gospel record of Christ." By reversing 
the order of facts, this reverend gentleman would have 
the unwary reader believe that all of these great philoso- 
phers borrowed their teachings from Christ, who was not 
born for hundreds of years after most of them were dead. 
This is about as honest a statement as can be expected 
from a clergyman. Had he said that the teachings of 
Christ followed closely the records of these philosophers, 
the fact would at once have been understood that the 
Christians did the borrowing. 

It is to-day generally conceded among those conversant 
with ecclesiastical history that the whole record of Christ, 
from the time of his alleged birth to the time it is said he 
commenced to harangue the public, at the age of about 
30, is a base fabrication, devoid of even the semblance of 
truth; and by the same authority it is reluctantly admitted 
that the record of him after that time and up to the time 
of his alleged death, stands upon little better foundation. 

If the fathers of the church were capable of forging a 
part of the record, and this fact has been proven, may it 
not with equal propriety be said that they were capable of 
forging the other partr and that as they had the will to 
forge the one, they had the will to forge the other? And 
this forgery has not only been proven, but accepted as a 



158 Commentaries on Hehreio 

fact by all the leading theological historians of Europe, 
as we have hereinbefore shown. 

Forged gospels and forged epistles adopted into the 
sacred Canon by force and bribery have been accepted as 
divine truth by the Christians of the world. 

The very existence of such a man as Christ is said to 
have been, was unknown to the pagan world, and un- 
noticed by a single pagan writer (and there were many of 
them) until the beginning of the second century, when they 
heard of him for the first time, through a class of ignorant 
fanatics calHng themselves Christians. Even the church 
writers knew nothing of such a man until the second cent- 
ury after his alleged death, so it is not improbable that, 
while the church fathers were in the business of fabri- 
cating records, the very existence of the man was one of 
the forgeries. 

The foregoing comprise only a few of the numerous 
church forgeries. It is a well-known fact that the Roman 
church as represented by the papacy claims an unbroken 
line of divine authority from Christ through Peter and so 
down through the popes to the present time, and they 
have supported this claim by documentary evidence, at 
least since the time of Dionysius Exiguus, who, it will be 
remembered, was the first to fix the date of the birth of 
Christ. This Scythian monk collected fifty, so-called, 
apostolic canons, short precepts, drawn from the Bible 
and the writings of the early fathers, also what purported 
to be the decrees of several councils of the Eastern and 
African churches between the years 314 and 451. To this 
collection there was added, later, a second part, contain- 
ing letters (decretals) of the bishops from 375 to 498, to 
which were further added from time to time more decre- 
tals, running back to the establishment of Christianity, 



And Christian Mythology. 159 

To these was added another collection, of Spanish origin, 
beginning about the seventh century, known as Bishop 
Isidore of Seville. These decretals took rank with the 
Bible itself, ran back to Christ, and constituted the basis 
of Christianity. It is now admitted by ecclesiastical his- 
torians and critics. Catholic as well as Protestant, that 
these documents are base forgeries. The church's excuse 
for these forgeries is that the occasion called for them. 

The forged documents remained unquestioned, and 
quoted as authority, until the fifteenth century, when the 
forgeries were first discovered and exposed (see "Mediae- 
val Europe." by Ephraim Emerton, Professor of History 
in Harvard University). 

Closely allied to the above comes a pious land forgery. 
At a very early date the church commenced to appropri- 
ate to itself immense areas of country in Italy, Sicily, 
Illyria, and Gaul, from the rental of which it received vast 
revenues. But as most of these lands had been obtained 
by fraud and force, the titles might be called in question, 
so Charlemagne, on demand of the church, confirmed, to 
that body, the titles to most of the Italian lands; the 
papacy founded its title on grants, purporting to come 
from Constantine. These grants, like the other forgeries, 
were believed to be genuine down to the fifteenth century, 
when they, too, were discovered to be clumsy forgeries, 
apparent on their face to have been the work of one of the 
church fathers, which will be seen on inspection of the 
forged decree in Henderson's ''Historical Documents of 
the Middle Ages." 

From what has hereinbefore been shown, it will be seen 
that the church fathers did not hesitate to commit for- 
geries as well as other crimes in the interests of the 
church. Forged gospels, forged decrees, forged epistles, 



160 Commentaries on Hebrew 

forged land titles, stolen pagan writings, briberies, force, 
and other frauds, all go to make up the foundation of 
Christianity. What a sublime system of religion! It is no 
wonder that the devout are so strongly attached to this 
idol of purity. 

On the foregoing showing, what is Christianity but an 
old, stale, threadbare, antiquated system of fables, leg- 
ends, and myths which had ceased to serve the purpose 
of the ancient philosophers and mythologians, and had 
been by them cast off, to be picked up and made the foun- 
dation and superstructure which now overshadows a large 
part of our globe, and holds within its clerical grasp mill- 
ions of otherwise intelligent human beings? 

Let us call up Carlyle and Hsten to him while he says : 
''Without lamp or authentic finger-post, is the course of 
pious genius toward the eternal kingdom grown. No 
fixed highway more ; the old spiritual highway and recog- 
nized paths to the eternal^ now all torn up and flung in 
heaps, submerged in unutterable boiling mud. Oceans of 
hypocrisy and unbelievability, speedy end to superstition, 
a gentle one if you can contrive it, but an end. What can 
it profit any mortal to adopt locutions and imaginations 
which do not correspond to facts, which no sane mortal 
can deliberately adopt as true ; and which the most ortho- 
dox of mortals can, after closing his mind to reason, per- 
suade himself to guess that he believes?" 

The Council of Nice, 

The third century had already passed without an estab- 
lished creed, a code of sacred laws, or even fixing the re- 
lations which Christ bore to Jehovah. Something must 
be done. So Constantine, the emperor, caused to be as- 
sembled at Nice three hundred and eighteen honest bish- 



And Christian Mythology. 161 

ops, with himself as chairman, ahhough at this time he 
was a pagan/" The council convened 325 A. C, and after 
several long adjournments finally adjourned 381 A. C. 
This body fixed a creed, settled by vote which of the 
numerous scripts gathered up from all sources, -with the 
traditions, should go into the sacred Canon and thereafter 
constitute the faith and belief of all true Christians for all 
time to come. Before proceeding to business this body 
decreed itself infallible. Then commenced bickering, 
wrangling, and quarreling over the writings to be received 
or rejected, so say Socrates, Sozomcn, and Rufinus. Up 
to this time Christ had occupied the position of a martyr 
and hero vibrating between heaven and earth. Hi« status 
must be fixed. So this honest council, aided by Constan- 
tine, the imperial murderer, by a solemn decree assigned 
to him a place among the Gods. By this decree and a 
second decree at Constantinople, May, 338, the Trinity 
borrowed from Hindustan, Chaldea, and Egypt was once 
more reinstated, and monotheism w^as overthrown. In 
thus establishing the Trinity, the Council but followed in 
the footsteps of earlier peoples and nations. 

Sabinus, Bishop of Heraclea, in speaking of this Coun- 
cil of Nice, says: ''With the exception of Constantine and 
Eusebius, the members were a lot of illiterate creatures. 
They vilified and libeled each other to such an extent, 
says Mosheim, that the Emperor had to use force to sup- 
press them. To cover up their infamous proceedings, all 
of their records were burned, by order of the Emperor. 
It will be remembered that while this Council fixed the 



*Some devout writers, seeing that it was a disgrace for a pagan 
to preside over a Christian council,' with more zeal than honesty, 
have attempted to show that he was a Christian before that event, 
but the most rehable authority is adverse to this contention. 



162 Commentaries on Hebrew 

status of Christ, it remained for the Council of Con- 
stantinople, May 338, to create the third God, the Holy 
Ghost. 

Most of the celestial and terrestrial heroes among the 
nations of antiquity were the offspring of earthly mothers 
begotten by the Gods. This famous Council of Nice fol- 
lowed the well-established rule, leaving the mother a 
virgin after the birth of the hero, literally copying the 
precedent in the case of Plato. As to the question of 
three in one and one in three, the Council acted not with- 
out precedent, for we have before seen how Anu, El, and 
Hea became one in Elohim, and how Elohim became 
three in Anu, El, and Hea; and in Egypt how Horus, Ra, 
and Tum became Jehovah. The process is a very simple 
one; all that is required is a dearth of intelligence and an 
unHmited amount of credulity. Another precedent is 
found in Hindu mythology, where we learn from the 
Vedas that the sun, personified, became Brahma, the 
creator and preserver of all things, and out of him sprang 
or issued Vishnu, afterward worshiped as Krishna. Then 
came Siva, a quasi-ghost, who also issued out of Brahma. 
After this Brahma entrusted the affairs of the world to 
Krishna, who became incarnate, took on the form of 
man, and in this guise descended to earth to look after the 
salvation of mankind; and at the final winding-up of 
earthly things he will return to earth to gather together 
his chosen people. 

As to the ritual of the church, the whole outfit, even to 
the form of the prayers, was borrowed from pagan na- 
tions. 



And Christian Mythology. 163 

What Do We Know of the Sayings and Doings of 
Christ? 

At this point, and on the foregoing record, the ques- 
tion recurs : What do we know of the sayings and doings 
of Christ? If all the persons who have been concerned 
in gathering up and perpetuating his record had been 
honest, it would even then readily be seen that our knowl- 
edge of him, to say the least, is extremely uncertain ; and 
when we take into consideration the interest the great 
army of priests and clergy have ever had to deceive the 
people that they might live in ease and luxury, on the 
credulity of the populace, and the further known fact that 
the priests and clergy have never scrupled at the means to 
accomplish their desired end, may we not in all candor 
assume that we know little or nothing concerning the 
man Christ? This is on the assumption that the man 
once lived. 

It is said of him that he worked miracles, that he healed 
the sick, cured the blind, and raised the dead. As to the 
alleged miracles, no one of ordinary intelligence in this 
age beHeves them. The alleged flight of the parents with 
the child into Egypt, and his return, were copied from the 
Hebrew legend of the return of Moses into Egypt. The 
Hebrew narrative reads: "Return into Egypt, for all the 
men are dead which sought thy life." The legend con- 
tinues: "And Moses took his wife and sons and set them 
upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt." The 
language used by the evangelist is : "And take the young 
child and his mother and go into the land of Israel, for 
they are all dead which sought the young child's life." 

Moses got his order from Jehovah, while Joseph got 
his from an angel; in both cases the parents rode on an 



164 Commentaries on Hebrew 

ass. The evangelical statement, that the boy Christ "in- 
creased in wisdom and strength, and in favor with God 
and men," runs parallel with the Hebrew statement about 
Samuel, 'That he grew and was in favor both with the 
Lord and with men." 

The suffering of Moses in the desert forty years, and 
the temptation and suffering of Christ in the desert forty 
days, are of the same piece. The forty days of ]\Ioses on 
Mount Sinai, his forty years in the wilderness, the forty 
days of Christ in the wilderness, and the forty days of 
Elijah are but mythical round numbers borrowed from 
the pagans. These things and the statements of the dis- 
cussions of Christ, when a boy, are but idle tales invented 
by the early fathers of the church to bolster up their 
cause. 

Pagan Miracles. 

We have said that no one of intelligence in this age be- 
lieves in miracles, but if we are mistaken in this, and there 
are such persons, who, from the force of early teachings, 
should take issue with us on this point, for their benefit 
and edification we will cite a few among the many pagan 
miracles, all of earlier dates, and all parallel with the He- 
brew and Christian articles. 

It was said and beHeved that Anius, high priest of 
Apollo, changed stone into wheat and wine. 

As Christ was begotten by the Holy Ghost, so Alex- 
ander the Great was begotten by Zeus, and so the elder 
Scipio was begotten by Jupiter. 

The Apis bull of Egypt was born from a cow impreg- 
nated by a ray of the sun, the divine soul of Osiris having 
entered into it when a calf; he was carried to Heliopolis, 
where he was worshiped forty days. As Augustus was the 



And Christian Mythology. 165 

son of Apollo, why should not Christ be the son of 
Jehovah, for it was a common thing for the Gods of those 
times to share the couches of married women? 

Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were mi- 
raculously born of the vestal virgin Ilia, with Apollo as 
their father; and like Christ they appeared to many per- 
sons after death. 

Argus and Vulcan were born of the Goddess Juno be- 
gotten by a God. Painkhi, king of Upper Egypt, had 
engraved on his monument the statement that he was 
born of a divine egg of his mother, impregnated by the 
God Ra. 

Esculapius, son of Apollo, raised the dead by bringing 
to life Hippolitus, son of Theseus, at the request of Diana. 

Hercules raised from the dead Alceste, wife of Ado- 
netus, king of Thessalia, and restored her to her husband. 

As Moses made water gush from a rock, so Minerva 
made oil spring from a rock. 

Matthew said the star followed the Magi from the East 
and rested over the new-born infant at Bethlehem. 

Justin says at the birth of Mithridates a comet appeared 
four hours a day for seventy days, so large as to fill one- 
fourth of the sky. 

Apollonius rivaled Christ in curing the sick and raising 
the dead. He astonished the priests and magistrates of 
Rome by bringing to life the dead body of a noble woman. 
After his death he was assigned a place among the Gods, 
temples were raised to his memory, and he was worshiped 
for 400 years. 

The Trojans received from heaven their idol Pallas. 

Tros, king of Troy, was translated to heaven by Zeus. 

The holy women of the temple of Diana and the priests 



166 Commentaries on HebreiO 

of the Goddess Feronia walked barefooted on burning 
coals of fire made in honor of Apollo. 

As an offset to the ram offered in sacrifice, in lieu of 
Isaac, the Goddess Vesta offered a heifer in sacrifice in 
the place of Metella. 

The horse of Pegasus, by the stroke of his foot, like 
Moses with the tip of his staff, caused water to gush from 
a rock. 

Pelopes, son of Tantalus, king of Phrygia, having been 
torn to pieces as a sacrifice to the Gods, the pieces were 
gathered up, joined, and life was restored. 

As Jehovah revealed to the evangelists that Christ was 
his son, so Vulcan revealed by fire that Ceculus was his 
son. 

Phineus, son of Mars, was born and nursed by his 
mother months after her death. 

As the walls of Jericho fell by the sound of trumpets, so 
the walls of Thebes were built by the sounds of musical 
instruments played by Amphion. 

Cyrus, the Persian king, when a child, was given up to 
be devoured by wild beasts, but was saved therefrom by 
divine interference. 

D. F. Strauss, in his "Life of Jesus," says that the story 
of the miraculous preservation of the child Christ is but 
the old story told of Zeus, with a change of names only. 
The story told in the Pentateuch of the miraculous pres- 
ervation of Moses in a basket on the Nile is but a copy 
of the stories told of Cyrus by Herodotus ; of Romulus by 
Livy ; of Sargon in the inscriptions ; of Suetonius by Au- 
gustus, the first Roman emperor. 

We might go on adding pagan miracles without num- 
ber, running parallel with those told by the Jews, and of 
Christ by the Christians. 



And Christian Mijthology. 167 

And we may here say that these pagan miracles come 
down to us just as well authenticated and supported as do 
those told in the Bible. They rest upon the same founda- 
tion, supported by the same class of evidence; and that 
foundation is a myth. The Jews and Christians undoubt- 
edly found it easier to borrow and select from a large 
stock of old, stale, well-believed pagan miracles, than to 
invent new ones. 

The Christian mythologians, being forced by the abun- 
dance of evidence to admit that all the religions of the 
world, like their own, claim to rest on divine revelations, 
finally fall back on borrowed miracles as a dernier resort 
to sustain a crumbling fabric. 

The only genuine miracle ever performed by Christ 
was in selecting one man out of twelve, who could read 
and write. As to dreams and prophecies, the ancients 
had a large stock, and they were as well fulfilled as those 
related in the Bible. 

The fine-spun but conflicting and contradictory gospel 
narratives of the conception, birth, and life of Christ have 
been by Baur, Strauss, Renan, Bauer, Greg, and others 
completely exploded. 

The Christians will here meet us and say, even assum- 
ing that Christ was only a man, he was a wonderful 
teacher; he taught many valuable things. If we should 
concede all which has been said of him in this respect to 
be true, our answer will be, that all of these things had 
been said and taught by others long before Christ lived. 
The Jewish Sabbath, even the very name, was borrowed 
from Egypt, Chaldea, Babylon, and Assyria, as herein- 
before stated. And as to the Christian Sunday, as before 
shown, it was borrowed from pagan Rome. 

The great Chinese philosopher Confucius taught his 



l68 Commentaries on Hehreio 

people to do unto others as they would be done by, nor 
was this any new idea originating with the Chinese. It is 
a natural instinct, a faculty possessed by all good men. 
And as for the devil, the mountain, and the kingdom 
story, that was borrowed from a Persian legend, where, 
as before stated, the devil took Zoroaster up into a moun- 
tain and offered him the kingdoms of the earth if he 
would forsake his rehgion. Substantially the same 
legend existed as to Buddha. Many things said to have 
been taught by Christ are absolutely impractical, and 
others, if carried out, would place us back into a state of 
barbarism. 

The World Without Christianity. 

The question here arises, whether the world would not 
be better off if Christianity had never existed? This de- 
pends on whether the church and its people have done 
more good than harm to the human race. The Chris- 
tians and their church have left a record of their doings, 
and by this they must stand trial. Let us examine the 
record as it has come down to us. 

Rome at the Time of the Origin of Christianity. 

At the time of the birth of Christianity, Rome was the 
world, and the world was Rome. Its vast empire was 
bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east 
by Hindustan, on the north by Germania and what now is 
Russia, and on the south by the great Libyan Desert of 
Africa; over this vast domain it held absolute dominion. 
To be Roman citizens was the pride of its people. Gen- 
erally the people were prosperous and happy. Justice 
and equity were administered in all the land. There were 
no religious bickerings or dissensions, for all were allowed 



And Christian Mythology. 169 

to worship the Gods, each according to the dictates of his 
own conscience, or to repudiate all of them. It has been 
said by one of the ablest historians, that if one were to 
select an epoch of the world's history when happiness 
had reached its highest point, he would elect the eighth 
century of Rome. Such was the state of the world at the 
birth of Christianity, when the ignorant worshiped all of 
the Gods, while the intelligent believed in none of them. 

Arrogance of Christian Doctrine, 

The Christians from the first avowed the doctrines that 
their God was the only true God; that they were abso- 
lutely right, and all who did not agree with them were 
heretics and enemies to their creed and their God; that 
they were ordained by a higher power to subdue and 
bring into the church all mankind; and that it was their 
right and duty to convert the world to Christianity, and 
to punish those who refused to be thus converted. 

The natural and inevitable result of such a doctrine, 
when attempted to be put into practice, was to array all 
others against this sect. Torture, persecution, and death 
to dissenters, heretics, and infidels was the natural and 
legitimate result of such a doctrine. 

In the infancy of the church, and up to the death of 
Constantine, 337 A. C, the church was too weak to en- 
force its precepts against the pagans, and even against the 
heretics except by excommunication. This weapon it 
freely used upon those who dared to call in question the 
orthodox opinion; and it often happened that those who 
were orthodox at one time were heterodox a little later, 
depending on the vote of the bishops or the whim of the 
emperor. The church everywhere tolerated no dissent- 
ing opinions. In all ages and countries where it had the 



170 Commentaries on HehreiO 

power, it enforced its decrees by torture, death, or banish- 
ment. It was only when civilization and humanity would 
no longer endure these outrages that the church adopted 
a milder form of persecution; this it did from necessity, 
not from choice. The church is as intolerant to-day as it 
was from the fourth to the seventeenth century, it has 
only changed its weapons and mode of warfare. 

Laws of disfranchisement and ostracism are now in full 
force on the statute books of many ct the American 
States. There are laws in full force and efifect in several 
of the States depriving the unbeliever of the right to vote 
or hold office, and in some States he is, or was a short 
time ago, not even permitted to testify in the Courts. 

In the State of Massachusetts, the old laws stand unre- 
pealed, making it a penal offence, punishable by fine and 
imprisonment, to ride on Sunday, or for the keeper of 
any public-house to permit any person other than guests 
to stand or sit around the premises. Another law of that 
State, still in force, punishes with imprisonment in the 
State prison any person who shall deny the divinity of 
any one of the three Christian Gods. 

In 1870 the Vatican Council at Rome issued a bull 
anathematizing all persons who deny that the world was 
made out of nothing, also all who oppose religion as pro- 
mulgated by the Roman church, or who assert the doc- 
trine of evolution, or that God and the universe are one 
and the same. 

As late as 1875 several Catholic journals of Italy, Spain, 
and Belgium, joined by some priests, clamored for the 
restoration of the Inquisition, and asserted that without 
force the church was doomed. 

While this was being done by the Catholics, numerous 
persecutions, for religious opinions, were being carried on 



And Christian Mythology. 1?1 

in Protestant Sweden against men of learning for speak- 
ing disrespectfully of Christianity. In two cases, the 
men, for publishing Strauss's "Life of Christ," were heav- 
ily fined, and served long terms of imprisonment. 

A little earlier, in 1765, at Abbeville, France, La Barre, 
on a charge of pulling down an old wooden crucifix, was 
condemned, and on June 5, 1766, was led to the place of 
execution, one hand cut ofif, his tongue drawn out with 
iron pinchers and cut ofif, after which his head was cut off. 
It was thereafter proven that the crucifix was blown down 
by a gale of wand. 

In the face of the foregoing state of facts, will it do to 
say that the spirit of religious persecution is not as rife to- 
day as in former years? It lacks the power to enforce its 
demoniac spirit, and that is all the difference. 

Low Character of the Early Christians. 

Tacitus, the Roman historian, w^ho condescended to 
speak of the early Christians, in referring to the burning 
of Rome, says that Nero charged the crime on the per- 
sons commonly called Christians; that Christus, the- 
founder of that sect, was put to death as a criminal; that 
the pernicious superstition, suppressed for a time, broke 
out again, not only in Judea, where it originated, but in 
Rome, where all the horrible, disgraceful things from all 
quarters fell into it as into a common receptacle, where 
they were encouraged. Gibbon says that the early 
Christians were composed of the dregs of the populace, 
of peasants, boys, women, beggars, and slaves. Paul, the 
real founder of Christianity, after a life's effort spent in the 
cause, succeeded in converting and bringing into the fold 
from six hundred to a thousand of these worthies, says 
Renan. Without Paul, Christianity would have perished 



l72 Commentaries on Hebrew 

in the cradle, and Paul would not have died a criminal in 
chains at Rome. However much we may differ from 
him, his heroism has won from us a tear for his grave. 
Peter is also supposed to have died an unnatural death at 
Rome. 

The Apostles, 

Out of the twelve original apostles alleged to have 
been selected by Christ, who were among his most 
intimate friends, eleven could neither read nor write; 
the twelfth was a tax-gatherer; the eleven were com- 
mon laborers and fishermen. After the death of 
their master, they for a time secreted themselves in 
Jerusalem and in out-of-the-way places in Judea, until 
the death of Stephen, when a few of them came from their 
hiding-places and appeared in the byways as advocates of 
the cause of their fallen hero. Very little is known oi 
them, and that little is found in the letters of Paul (which 
are charged to be forgeries), in the book of Acts, and in 
tradition. Tradition has consigned them all to violent 
deaths and ignominious graves. From this obscure root 
sprang the Christian tree which has cast its blight and 
shadow over Europe and America. 

Christianity, like many other budding myths, would 
undoubtedly have died in its cradle but for the impetuous 
Paul and the cool-headed Barnabas. Paul was a Jewish 
officer, and unrelenting in his persecution of the Chris- 
tians, but he, like Brahma, became converted by a mir- 
acle, after which his impetuous temper made him as much 
of an enemy of the Jews as he had before been of the 
Christians. 

Tertullian, the orator, called Paul the ringleader of the 
sect of Nazarenes. 



And Christian 3fythology. 173 

A fanatic called Simon, of the town of Gitton in 
Samaria, commenced to preach primitive Mosaism, of 
which he pretended to have found the sacred utensils. 
He cured the sick, raised the dead, restored the blind, and 
did many other wonders by laying- on of hands. Al- 
though a pagan and a conjurer, he was making many 
converts. 

Phihp, learning of Simon's success, rushed to his aid, 
followed by the apostles Peter and John, when all worked 
together and rivaled Jerusalem in the number of converts. 
Barnabas, one of the most enhghtened of the Christians, 
seeing that this pagan Simon was likely to outdo the faith- 
ful in miracles, rushed to the aid of Paul, who was likely 
to destroy, not only himself, but his cause, by his own 
egotism and self-will ; when the two acted together on the 
Christian side, turned their shafts against Simon and his 
miraculous powers, until they crushed him. In this way, 
and by this combination and trust, Simon lost and Christ 
won the place on the trinity. 

Quarrel Over the Trinity and Incarnation, 

After the extinction of paganism, the Christian bishops 
and presbyters, early in the fifth century, turned their at- 
tention to the exploration of the nature and attributes of 
their founder. The disputes concerning the trinity were 
followed by those on the incarnation. Whether Christ 
was of pure divine or of human origin, or a mixture and 
compound of the two natures, made up the issue for de- 
termination; each side resorted to all manner of artifice, 
subterfuge, special pleas, invective, and ridicule to se- 
cure a verdict or majority vote at the synods; for a ma- 
jority vote determined and settled for the time the ques- 
tion as to which party was orthodox and which heretic. 



174 Commentaries on Hebrew 

The action and determination of one assembly generally 
failed to quiet and hush the threats of the minority, nor 
was it an uncommon thing for a synod to reverse the de- 
cree of a former one, and call from banishment the exiled 
heretics and fill their places in exile by those who were 
orthodox at a former trial. 

These bitter wranglings brought to the surface three 
powerful sects who, in order to get rid of the notion that 
their hero was born of a woman and reared like other 
children, boldly denied that he was born at all, and as- 
serted that he, fully matured, was let down from heaven 
into Judea, where, as a pure divinity, he taught the road to 
salvation. To get around the death scene, they asserted 
that it was a Jew resembling their hero who was crucified. 
This faction, being too small to maintain itself, was soon 
eaten up by the other two, who joined hands for that pur- 
pose, only to renew their quarrels after they had devoured 
their lesser enemy. Had these sects been successful, the 
road of the Christians would have been a short and easy 
one, for neither history nor tradition would have been in 
their way; a bold assertion of their hero on earth, and of 
his ascension to heaven, would have ended the contro- 
versy, and saved them the ever-recurring perplexity of 
explaining away the natural birth and boyhood of their 
Messiah, and his ignominious death. 

This controversy was kept up for 250 years; the con- 
tagion spread until the Roman emperor was drawn into 
the vortex, when he used his position, and at times his 
army, to settle the dispute. When a point had to be 
settled by the army, of course all the soldiers were in- 
spired. The quarrels raged so fiercely and became so 
desperate between these pious warriors, that they often 
brought an army of fighting Christians to the assemblies, 



And Christian Mythology, 175 

as auxiliaries in case of need to assist in their divine work. 
Nor was it an uncommon thing to have a clash of arms, 
resulting in the sacrifice of thousands of lives. 

It was a common practice with the pious bishops and 
presbyters, when they happened to be on the winning, or 
orthodox, side, to roast their heretical adversaries over 
slow fires, cut off their hands or feet, or tear out their 
tongues, as best suited their refined natures. Thousands 
upon thousands were thus tortured and put to death. 

Sometimes both men and womicn were stripped naked 
and suspended in the air by ropes, with weights tied to 
their feet, where they hung until relieved by death or con- 
version to the true faith. The persecuted at one time be- 
came the persecutors a little later, depending on the vote 
of the Council or the side espoused by the emperor. All 
were Christians — persecuted and persecutors — differing 
only as to some minute or obscure doctrinal point about 
the trinity or incarnation; but as it was deemed necessary 
to salvation that the believer should not make a mistake, 
the end, however harsh or cruel, always justified the 
means. 

After two hundred and fifty years of strife and blood- 
shed between these holy divines, aided by their devout 
votaries, the issues were finally settled or dropped by an 
agreement to ascribe to their founder, hero, and Savior, 
the name, title, character, and appellation of Homoousian 
or Homoiousian, leaving each of the contending parties 
to construe this term to suit itself. After thus settling 
the question, the mind of the pious devotee can rest at 
ease, for if his faith be ever doubted or called in question, 
all he has to do is to remember the password, Homoou- 
sian, and leave the angels or other doorkeq^ers to inter- 
pret the oracle. 



176 Commentaries 07i Hebrew 

The Christian church of to-day rests upon the bones of 
from thirty to fifty milhons of human beings guilty of no 
crime or offense (unless it be a crime not to understand, 
comprehend, or believe in the asserted divinity of Christ), 
who have been tortured and put to death in the most cruel 
and inhuman manner at the instigation, and by the 
authority and command, of priests, bishops, popes, and 
other pious leaders of the church, all claiming to act 
under and in pursuance of divine authority. 

Quarrel Over Images. 

The bishops, "presbyters, deacons, and other church 
rulers, not having all their time occupied in settling the 
divine nature of their hero, turned their attention to the 
question of the worship of images, which by the middle of 
the sixth century had become so thoroughly established 
as to supplant and usurp the place of the founder of the 
sect. 

The walls of the cathedrals of the principal cities of 
Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe were decorated with 
pictures of Christ, the Virgin, the Holy Ghost, and 
numerous lesser divinities, all made without hands. The 
scandal had become so great that many of the bishops 
and deacons declared that the idols of pagan Rome had 
taken the place of their redeemer and martyr. A Council 
was called to take action in the premises. The seventh 
general synod, of 338 bishops, met at Constantinople, and 
by an edict abolished, pro forma, the worship of images. 
But the populace, preferring visible to invisible divinities, 
refused to give up their idols. An attempt to destroy 
these long-established objects of veneration resulted in a 
general conflict. The rulers were divided, the devout 
were impregnable. Anathemas, and decrees of excom- 



Jnd Christian 3IytJiology. 177 

munication, were hurled in vain; more potent weapons 
were resorted to, when thousands freely gave up their 
lives to the holy cause. After thirty-eight years of strife 
and carnage, the second orthodox Council convened at 
Nice, and revoked the former edict, thereby restoring to 
the Christians their pagan idols. 

The priests assured the faithful that their images had 
promised protection to the cities of Asia, Syria, and 
Africa, wherein they were placed, from the ravages of the 
infidel Saracens; but notwithstanding these assurances 
the Mohammedans captured the cities and destroyed the 
Gods of the Christians. 

Battle of Tours. 

After the Saracens had overrun a considerable part of 
Asia and Africa, planted the crescent in place of the cross, 
invaded and conquered part of Europe, Christianity hung 
by a single thread. Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, 
France, and Switzerland gathered and united their forces 
for the final struggle. The vast armies were quite evenly 
divided ; the battle was fought near Tours, 732 A. C. ; for 
six long days the battle raged with varying success ; at the 
close of the sixth day the Christians were preparing for 
defeat ; on the seventh day the carnage and slaughter went 
on, the Gods favoring the Saracens until Abd-el-Rah- 
man, their commander, fell mortally wounded, leaving 
his followers in dismay to quarrel among themselves, 
while the Christians, led by Martel, remained masters of 
the field. Mohammedan invasions and conquest ceased 
for a time with this famous battle, and the followers of the 
cross once more felt at ease. 

While the faithful will believe the story of Anastasius, 
that the success of the Christians was due to the use 



178 Commentaries on Hebrew 

among the soldiers of three consecrated sponges, which 
prevented the spears of the infidels from piercing the 
bodies of the faithful, the unbeliever will continue to at- 
tribute the defeat of the Saracens to the death of their 
commander. 

One would naturally think that, for saving the life of 
Christianity, Charles Martel, the hero of Tours, would 
have been assigned a place among the Gods, or at least 
among the saints, but it was not so to be, for to pay off his 
army for its pious work he found it necessary to appro- 
priate a part of the church property. For this sacrilegious 
act he was by a GalHc synod consigned to eternal perdi- 
tion. Several bishops, who claimed to be eye-witnesses 
at the opening of Martel' s grave some years after his 
death, vouched for the truth that they smelled brimstone, 
saw fire issue from his grave, and a dragon come out of 
his body. 

Had Abd-el-Rahman not fallen in that famous battle, 
the Koran would have been taught to-day in the schools, 
while Europe and America would have been proclaiming 
the praise of Allah, and of Mohammed as his prophet. 

Quarrel Over the Sacrament, 

Closely allied to the foregoing, there arose a contest 
among the Lutherans, of the Reformed church, as to what 
constituted the substance of the sacrament. The contest 
lasted during the whole of the sixteenth century, and 
while it was equally bitter, often ending in fights, it was 
less sanguinary than that over the trinity and incarnation. 
The issues were fairly and fully presented as to whether 
the devout, in partaking of the sacrament, did so emble- 
rnatically, or whether he, in eating the bread and drinking 



And Christian Mythology, 179 

the claret, was eating the genuine flesh and drinking the 
genuine blood of his redeemer. 

Such vital, substantial, ponderous, and all-absorbing 
questions as these, especially when urged with such 
power, vehemence, force, culture, and logic as the teach- 
ers of divinity alone can wield, must have been interest- 
ing and instructive, as well as amusing, to the outside 
world. 

Whatever may be said as to the cannibalism of the ma- 
terialistic party, it cannot be denied that its adherents had 
the advantage of solid food in their stomachs, even though 
somewhat stale, over their opponents, who contented 
themselves by Hving on air. 

Constantine, First Christian Emperor, 

Constantine was born at Rome 272 A. C, proclaimed 
emperor by his army 306 A. C, and was an usurper when 
he was placed in the command of the army of Gaul, over 
soldiers most of whom were Christians. On his return 
from Gaul with an army of 130,000 men, he discovered a 
sign of the cross in the heavens, which he interpreted to 
his soldiers as an omen of success. At the head of his 
Christian army, Constantine reared the cross and on it 
the motto, "By this sign ye shall conquer." He defeated 
Licinius at the head of 180,000 pagans, and thereby laid 
the foundation of his future greatness, as well as the foun- 
dation of the Christian church, of which he became the 
head. He caused Licinius to be murdered 324 A. C. 

Some of the cardinal virtues in the life of this great 
Christian leader can hardly be out of place here. His 
wife Fausta he put to death by drowning her in a tank of 
boiling water; he beheaded his eldest son Crispus while 
he (Constantine) was presiding at the Christian Council 



180 Commentaries on Hebrew 

of Nice; he murdered the husbands of his two sisters 
Constantia and Anastasia; he murdered his father-in-law 
Maximian HercuHus; he murdered his nephew, twelve 
years of age, and some others. 

Bishop Lardner, in speaking of these murders by Con- 
stantine, says: 'They seem to cast a reflection upon 
him." All of these murdered people were pagans. After 
these murders, Constantine applied to the pagan priest 
Sopater for consolation, and when told by this priest that 
he could do nothing for him, he killed the priest and then 
applied to the Christian bishops, who absolved him from 
the penalties of these crimes and gave him a free pass to 
paradise. (Purgatory had not then been created, nor was 
this wayside inn finally estabHshed by decree until the 
meeting of the Council of Trent in the fifteenth centur}', 
when to replenish the papal exchequer, this house was de- 
clared a stopping-place for all of the faithful who left 
funds or friends to purchase a ticket for the rest of the 
route). For this act of the bishops, Constantine abjured 
paganism and entered into full fellowship with the 
church, presided at the Councils, settled religious con- 
troversies, and declared what opinions were orthodox and 
what heterodox. 

One of the most important acts of this royal murderer 
was to decree and settle the trinity. Constantine died 
337 A. C 

Summary of the Origin of Christian Mythology, 

In the foregoing, we have, in brief, referred to only a 
few of the numerous leading critics and commentators 
consulted in making up this book. To have done more 
would have been foreign to the purposes of this little 
work. Should the reader desire to go more into the de 



And Christian Mythology. 181 

tails of the various questions herein presented, in addi- 
tion to the authorities herein cited, he will find under 
different headings in the several encyclopaedias, quite full 
lists of authors; and as to the critics on Christ, Chris- 
tianity, and the gospels, he may find such as he desires in 
McClintock & Strong's "Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theo- 
logical, and Ecclesiastical Literature." Germany has fur- 
nished a large majority of these writers, France a few, 
while England and America have contributed freely to 
the corps. Each critic, of course, has his own style, to some 
extent different from all others. On a cursory reading, 
there may seem a lack of harmony, and, to a limited ex- 
tent, conflicts between the numerous writers, but the dis- 
crepancy largely melts away on closer attention; at any 
rate, the main facts are always in sight. To those who 
have not the time or inclination to further pursue the sub- 
jects herein treated of, this summary or compendium, 
with the author's deductions from the numerous writers 
consulted, will come in place and be found useful. 

We think the evidence warrants the statement that in 
the infancy of Christianity, honesty and ignorance were 
the only factors, and this may truthfully be said of all the 
ancient religions, thus putting Christianity, at the outset, 
on the same plane with all the ancient systems. 

That a man called Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, etc., 
once lived is quite probable. The facts to be inferred from 
circumstances, rather than from direct evidence, seem to 
warrant such a conclusion. The Christ, being attached 
to the name of Jesus, as an office, can have no other sig- 
nificance. What evidence we have points most strongly 
to the conclusion that he was the son of a Roman soldier 
named Panthera, and not the child of Joseph. 

Leaving the four gospels out of consideration, on the 



182 Commentaries on Hebrew 

ground that their authenticity is unknown and that they 
are spurious, we have no direct evidence whatever that 
such a man ever lived ; but the fact that there grew up in 
Judea a class of men calHng themselves Christians, the 
followers of a Christ or Jesus, would seem, in the absence 
of evidence to the contrary, to warrant the belief that a 
real man once lived who became the leader of a sect 
called Christians. 

As to the historical Jesus Christ of the gospels, it has 
been proven beyond doubt that he is a myth, a shadow. 
But assuming the existence of a Jesus Christ, a resident 
of Judea, and taking Christian evidence for our principal 
guide, the Christ probably possessed a large amount of 
magnetism, and possibly understood something of the 
art of jugglery learned from the Egyptians. With the 
aid of this art and his own magnetism, he naturally drew 
around him a number of sightseers of the ignorant class, 
who believed him to possess supernatural powers. Such 
powers at that time and among that class of ignorant 
people, came as a matter of course from a supreme being. 

His devotees in the course of time became numerous. 
They saw naught but the marvelous side, believed and 
told of wonderful cures performed by their master. In the 
course of time these tales extended beyond the borders of 
Judea, and as they were retold from one to another, they 
naturally increased in marvelousness until the hero be- 
came one of the Gods; once a God, he performed all that 
was expected, and all that had been foretold concerning 
the promised Messiah; in short, the Messiah had appeared. 
He probably died a natural death ; but the foundation had 
been laid, and all the rest naturally followed. The story 
of his crucifixion and resurrection according to predic- 
tion, was appHed, and the Christ was in heaven, soon to 



And Christian Mythology. 183 

make his second appearance on earth and look after his 
chosen people. In such a frame of mind there was noth- 
ing too fabulous to conceive of and report about the de- 
parted Savior. 

Amid the excitement and declamations concerning his 
seco:':d appearance, no one thought of writing anything 
concerning him; rude churches were built all over the 
Roman Empire, and daily discourses delivered therein by 
the rtiore intelligent of the Christians. Every favorable 
report concerning the Christ was a piece of good-tidings, 
a gospel. A hundred years elapsed, and the Savior failed 
to appear; his followers believed themselves mis'aken only 
as to time. The necessity of preserving the biography, 
the sayings and doings, of the Christ naturally suggested 
itself; the material for such a history was readily found in 
the numerous oral declarations afloat everywhere. Among 
these oral traditions the teachings of Philo, Plato, ApoUo- 
nius, Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, and other pagan phi- 
losophers had become the leading features of the stock to 
be drawi: upon; mixed with these were all manner of sto- 
ries and legends too ridiculous to be entertained by the 
more enlightened of the Christians. 

Writers everywhere sprang up. It is said that the sec- 
ond and third centuries were specially prolific in such 
writings. The writings at the East, in Asia, were tinct- 
ured largely with the religions of India, Persia, and 
China. Those of Africa, with the systems of Egypt and 
the Hebrews; while Europe called to her aid the religions 
of the Druids and Scandinavians. 

The gospels everywhere differed. The church had be- 
come powerful in numbers, and the priests in influence, 
but there was no concert of action. 

The priests, at all times mindful of their interests, saw 



184 Commentaries on Hebrew 

the necessity of union; in union they could control. The 
priests of the East came together and met in Council; the 
Council commenced to gather up and sift out of the mass 
of writings such as suited their purposes, for the end in 
view was the power of the priesthood. The Councils, for 
they were numerous, selected mostly from the teachings 
of Philo and Plato, with a sprinkling from the Oriental 
systems; the great mass of other gospels was rejected, and 
a crude Testament, or Bible, made from the writings of the 
pagan philosophers, only substituting Christian names, 
dates, and places for pagan ones. 

This same process was followed in Europe and Africa, 
resulting in an Eastern, a Southern, and a Western 
church, each having its own gospel reduced to a Bible. 
The priests, having gained the first point, now sought to 
concentrate in one church. The leading priests in the 
three divisions agreed to meet in Council. The first gen- 
eral Council, which convened at Nice, did little else than 
discuss rules and lay down a general plan to get into 
power and control the Christian populace. 

The second great Council met at Nice 325 A. C, when 
the great work of consolidation took place; attempts to 
harmonize the gospels, each party claiming its own, re- 
sulted in the most direful conflict. Notwithstanding the 
Council had decreed itself infallible, there was a general 
overhauling of the books, each party conceding some- 
thing for the general good — no, for power to the priest- 
hood, for that was the end in view. A patched-up Bible 
was created, and the ecclesiastical power of the church 
centered in a priesthood ruled by bishops, who later on 
selected a president, called a pope. 

In order to carry out their purposes, the civil powers 
needed to be added. Constantine, although a pagan, was 



And Christian Mythology. 185 

called in, and promised the aid of the church and its fight- 
ing Christians, when he became a party to this infamous 
scheme. We have seen how he became a party and the 
head of the church. 

The church, once in power, determined to perpetuate 
itself at all cost; no value was placed on the lives of the 
populace; the end justified any means, however harsh or 
cruel. The pagans and the Jews were still a power that 
might be used to crush the church; this power must be 
blotted out; Christianity must be the religion of the world, 
and its priesthood must rule all mankind; pagans and 
Jews alike must be brought into the church, peaceably if 
convenient, forcibly if necessary; torture and death be- 
came the rule. The church, to be supreme master, could 
tolerate no dissenters; dissenters were heretics; heretics 
must be put to death that the church might live. How 
well the church succeeded, and what means she used, we 
will tell in what follows. 

Records of the Church in Evidence, 

We will now proceed and put in evidence some of the 
records of the church, from its earliest dates, especially 
from the death of Constantine, down to the present time. 
This we do in support of our side of the question : Would 
the world have been better ofif if the church had never 
been established? 

First Crusade. 

W^ first ofifer in evidence the historical records of the 
first Crusade, with Peter the Hermit as the organizer of 
the great Christian army, commanded by several bishops 
of the holy church. 



186 Commentaries on Hebrew 

It will be recollected that this army was gathered 
from every part of Europe, numbering more than 600,000 
fighting Christians ; some have placed the number at over 
1,000,000. This is exclusive of women and children, who 
in great numbers attended the army. Their aim, as you 
know, was to recover and wrest from the insolent Sara- 
cens Jerusalem and the holy sepulcher, where it is said 
the body of Christ had once been laid. The rendezvous, 
or encampment, from which to make a united start w^as 
fixed on the eastern side of the Bosporus, but before this 
point could be reached, the various divisions had to trav- 
erse their own dominions, and in some cases, the terri- 
tory of their confederates. 

An army of 600,000 men was gathered on the con- 
fines of Gaul and Germany, under the command of Walter 
the Penniless. So sure were the Crusaders that their God, 
or their Gods, for they then had three, would supply them 
with arms and provisions, that little precaution was taken 
to procure those things. Walter, from the time of start- 
ing in his own territory, commenced a system of foraging 
for supplies among his own Christian people. In this he 
met with much opposition, which, when he had sufiBcient 
force, he crushed without stint, putting to death all op- 
ponents, whether Christians or infidels. 

In passing through Verdun, Treves, Metz, Spires, and 
Worms they placed a goose and a goat at the head of the 
column as emblematic of their faith and their intelligence ; 
on the road they murdered every Jew within their reach. 
Many of the Jews were tortured in the most inhuman 
manner; thousands of men were massacred, while 
many others took their own lives to avoid falling into the 
hands of the fiendish mob. 

In passing through Hungary and Bulgaria the same 



And Christian Mythology. 187 

system of pillage and murder was adopted. These coun- 
tries, having been forewarned, raised an army of 200,000 
Christians with which they slaughtered over 40,000 of 
Walter's Crusaders, when the rest of them fled, first to the 
mountains, and then to Constantinople, where they were 
j>-iven protection by the Roman emperor. In return for 
this they renewed their depredations. The emperor, to 
get rid of them, gave them aid and quietly crossed them 
over to the Asiatic shore. 

All Europe in Arms. 

All Christian Europe (for Europe was then all Christian, 
under the absolute will and dominion of the church) was 
in arms for the holy war. The motto was, the more infi- 
dels slaughtered, the more Christ would be glorified. So 
each of these Christian soldiers felt it a duty specially en- 
joined upon him to murder as many unbelievers as pos- 
sible; the more the victims could be tortured, the greater 
the reward to the victor. Spain, Italy, and England suf- 
fered little less than France during the exit of the holy 
band from their territories. 

When all were landed on the eastern side of the Bospo- 
rus, the lack of arms, with hunger and starvation staring 
them in the face, began to be realized. Much time was 
here spent, where thousands died from exposure and star- 
vation; the remnant, many of them sick and emaciated, 
took up their march for the Holy Land. 

We will not go into the details of the barbarities of this 
motley horde in their march through Asia Minor. Suffice 
it to say that, in that country, this Christian band of ma- 
rauders had to contend with large numbers of Saracens, 
who constantly harassed the rear, and frequently gave 
battle to the Crusaders. In this way, and from exposure 



188 Commentaries on Hebrew 

and starvation, the ranks of the Crusaders from day to 
day became sadly diminished ; but they managed to tort- 
ure and destroy thousands of the Saracens. Torture of 
the women and children by slow death was the delight of 
these pious warriors. They were driven to such straits by 
hunger, it is recorded, that they killed and devoured many 
of their own children. Quite a large body of the Cru- 
saders finally reached the promised land, and after much 
delay laid siege to Jerusalem. 

After long siege, and when despair reigned in their 

camp, a holy fraud was resorted to; they had dug up the 

real cross, which they reared at the head of their columns ; 

so excited were the Christian soldiers at the sight of this 

■ emblem that a rush was made on the city. 

Capture of Jerusalem, 

A shout was raised, and on the 15th day of July, 1099, 
the walls were scaled and the army entered the holy city, 
which contained about 100,000 people. 

I will stop here for a while and let the Rev. James White 
finish the story. He says: 'The slaughter lasted six 
days, stopping only long enough to allow these pious 
Christians to offer up prayers. When they entered the 
mosque of Omar, where about one-third of the people of 
the city had shut themselves up for safety, the slaughter 
was so terrible that the horses were in blood up to their 
girths." We here add that these Christians also took time 
to sleep and eat, and that during the slaughter hundreds 
of babies had spears run through their bodies, which were 
hoisted up and carried through the streets writhing in 
agony. The most brutal tortures were inflicted upon 
women and children. A few Saracen infidels, as they were 
called, made their escape, all others perished. Just 433 



And Christian Mytliology. 189 

years before this time the Saracens captured the city from 
the Christians; when it was surrendered to Omah, he 
would not even allow his army to enter the city, but 
offered up his prayers outside the walls, so tender was he 
of the feelings of the Christians. 

In 1 177 A. C, just sixty-eight years after the capture 
and slaughter by the crusading horde, the city was re- 
taken by the Saracens under Saladin. After the surrender 
not a soul was injured; the Greek and Oriental Christians 
were allowed to remain; all others were given sixty days 
to prepare for departure, when they were safely escorted 
by the Saracen army to places of their own choice. Out 
of the vast hordes who enlisted in this Crusade, but a 
mere handful lived to get back to Europe. 

Other Crusading Expeditions. 

There were nine or ten crusading expeditions following 
the first one, covering a period of over two hundred years. 
We will not repeat the story of the first Crusade ; sufHce it 
to say that owing to the fewer number engaged the suffer- 
ings and barbarities were not on so extensive a scale as in 
the first expedition. It has been estimated by historians 
that in all these Crusades against the infidels, more than 
15,000,000 of lives were sacrificed. What for? we ask. 
The answer is that all this carnage and misery was to 
glorify Christ, and to recover his burial-place from unbe- 
lievers. 

Records of the Inquisition in Evidence. 

We now offer in evidence the historical records of the 
inquisition. 



190 Commentaries on Hebrew 

Persecutions in England. 

In 1543, Queen Mary commenced to re-establish the 
old church, and in less than four years Archbishop Cran- 
mer, Bishops Hooper and Latimer, and many other clergy- 
men, with over three hundred of their disciples, of all ages 
and both sexes, were burned at the stake. During the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries large numbers were exe- 
cuted in England as heretics. In 1 160 thirty heretics went 
from Germany to England to propagate their opinions; 
thoy were seized, branded on the foreheads, whipped, and 
thrust into the streets in the dead of winter; no one daring 
to reheve them, they died from cold and hunger. In 1401 
a law was passed in England permitting the priests to try, 
condenm, and burn heretics. General slaughter by burn- 
ing followed this law, says Rev. Mr. White. 

At the coronation of Richard I there was a wholesale 
slaughter of the Jews in London by order of the Christian 
priests. Five hundred men, with their families, shut 
themselves up in a castle; the castle was besieged by a 
mob of Christians ; the besieged killed themselves to avoid 
a v/orse death. In 121 2, in England, several hundred her- 
etics were put in prison, some of whom had their eyes put 
out, others had their teeth pulled out, and many of them 
Avcre butchered. 

The last person executed in Great Britain for heresy 
was Thomas Aikenhead, of Edinburgh, 1696. In 1828 an 
old law of England requiring the taking of the sacrament 
as a qualification to office was repealed. 

Justin in his humanity gave all heretics three months 
in which to choose between exile and baptism; 70,000 
pagans chose the latter and thereby became good Chris- 
tians, but the Samaritans preferred the chances of war, 



And Christian Mythology. 191 

with the result of the loss of their province, and the 
slaughter of 100,000 of its people. 

Inquisition Established, 

Although the inquisition had existed in fact as far 
back as the eighth century, it was not established by for- 
mal decree until the meeting of the Council of Toulouse 
in 1229; six years before this an inquisitorial mission was 
created and put into the hands of the Dominicans. Pietro 
de Verona was the first to apply the torch. He was assas- 
sinated April 6, 1252, and afterward canonized by the 
church. The inquisition laws were amended or new 
articles added from time to time to increase the torture, 
and the articles went so far as to authorize the mutilation 
of the bodies of the dead and the punishment of the ser- 
vants of the rich. 

IJorente, in his ''History of the Inquisition," says: 
'The hand of the holy office (this is what the Christians 
called it) was outstretched against all; no degree in dignity 
in church or state, no eminence in art or science, and no 
purity of life could stand its madness. War was made on 
books of every kind ; 700,000 volumes were burned in the 
temple of Serapis at Alexandria by order of the Christian 
Emperor Theodosius." 

"In the love of Christ and his maiden mother," says 
Queen Isabella, 'T have caused great misery, depopulated 
towns, districts, provinces, and kingdoms." 

Llorente gives the figures 31,912 burned alive, 17,659 
imprisoned and tortured, 291,450 penitents, whose tort- 
ure was little better than death, a total of 341,051 during 
the term of his office as secretary of the inquisition. After 
the list of heretics had been exhausted, the Christian king 
md the queen of Castile turned the car of vengeance on 



192 Commentaries on Hebrew 

to the Jews and Moors. For persecution of the Jews, see 
further on. 

The age at which children could be tried, condemned, 
and burned was for boys ten and one-half years, and nine 
and one-half years for girls. None were so high in rank 
or power as to escape the torch; even bishops and priests 
suspected of leniency to heretics were subjected to the 
torch. It was made the duty of all to hunt up and give 
information; if anyone failed in this he was treated as a 
heretic. The suspects were, without notice, arrested and 
throv^'n into the most loathsome dungeons, where they 
sometimes lay for years. Occasionally they were brought 
out, put on the rack, and tortured for a confession or de- 
nial ; if they confessed they were thrust back into the dun- 
geon and made to do penance worse than death. All per- 
sons suspected of having any knowledge were summoned 
as witnesses; if they stubbornly refused to testify, or 
seemed to favor the accused, torture was applied to them. 

A heretic could not testify in favor of a heretic, but was 
compelled to testify against him ; the houses of all persons 
harboring heretics were destroyed and the inmates ar- 
rested. 

Frederick Barbarossa said the sword had been given 
him to smite the enemies of Christ. Every official took 
an oath to prosecute heretics to extermination; no tie of 
kindred served as an excuse; the son must denounce the 
father, and the husband was guilty if he failed to deliver 
lip his wife to be burned. All trials were held in secret; 
the accused had no opportunity of seeing his accusers ; all 
doubts were resolved against the accused. When con- 
denmed, confiscation of property and death followed. 

Heretics of both sexes and all ages were outlaws; there 
was no statute of limitation; the children to the second 



And Christian Mythology. 193 

generation were disqualified from holding office; defend- 
ers of heretics were to be treated as heretics, their chil- 
dren disinherited and their property confiscated. Rulers 
and judges were required to take an oath to use their ut- 
most endeavors to exterminate all unbelievers, under pen- 
alty of forfeiture of office; an arrest on suspicion was 
generally equivalent to conviction and death. Even the 
death of the person accused did not stop the prosecution; 
the trial went on against the dead heretic; his body was 
mutilated and his property confiscated. Even if he had 
died a natural death, and if at any time thereafter it was 
discovered that he had been a heretic, his body was taken 
from the grave, tried, condemned, and mutilated. 

In 897 Pope Stephen VII caused the body of his pre- 
decessor (suspected of favoring a heretic), then seven 
months in the grave, to be dug up, dragged by the heels, 
and set up in the synod, where the body was tried and 
condemned, two fingers cut off and thrown into the Tiber, 
and the body reburied. In 905 this same body was again 
taken out of the grave by order of Sergius III, clothed in 
its pontifical robes, seated on the throne, tried, con- 
demned, and beheaded, when three more fingers were cut 
off and thrown into the Tiber. 

We cite this as a single case out of thousands w^ho were 
punished after death, only to show that the doctrines of 
Christianity were duly promulgated and enforced. 

With absolute sway over all Europe, with this ma- 
chinery for conversion at its command, the church, after 
more than 1800 years, has succeeded in bringing into its 
fold as actual supporters 200,000,000, leaving 1,300,000,- 
000 souls unconverted to Christianity. 

Joseph Bonaparte, in 1808, with his army in Spain, sup- 
pressed this machinery for making Christians. Llorente, 



19:1 Commentaries on Hebrew 

the historian, says: ''After the hands of Napoleon had 
been taken off, the institution revived in Rome and Mad- 
rid, but its teeth were gone and it could do little but show 
a murderous will." 

If we be told that the trial of heretics is past, that it is 
one of the things of the dark ages, our answer will be that 
heretics were burned as late as the early part of the 19th 
century; that the inquisition was introduced into the 
Spanish-American colonies, where, in Mexico, Cartha- 
gena, and Lima, it rivaled in severity that of Spain, and 
that within the last few years one Catholic and five Prot- 
estant clergymen have been tried in free America for her- 
esy; but they were not burned at the stake for want of 
power in the church. 

Persecutions in France, 

In 1525 the Catholics in France made general war on 
the Protestants and massacred great numbers of them. 
On the 24th of August, 1572, at the Bartholomew massa- 
cre, Scully says: "Seventy thousand French Huguenots 
were slaughtered, neither age nor sex was spared." In 
Paris alone more than 10,000 suffered death; extreme tort- 
ure was the rule. This wholesale murder took place be- 
tween Christians, and on the sole ground of honest differ- 
ence of opinion on religious matters. In 1723, in the same 
country, Protestant assemblies were forbidden, churches 
pulled down, and death was decreed to all who should 
harbor heretics. 

Spanish Persecutions. 

Rev. James White, in his ''Eighteen Centuries," says: 
"In the thirteenth century came the order in Spain for the 
first crusade against heretics in the province of Langue- 
doc, instigated by Dominic Guzman, and under the corn- 



And Christian Mythology. 195 

mand of Simon de Montfort. To his standard flocked the 
devout from all parts of Europe. The pious Guzman gave 
orders, saying: 'Ravish every field, slay every human be- 
ing, and the blessing will be with you.' Soon word was 
sent that the crusaders could not distinguish orthodox 
from heretics; the answer came back: 'Slaughter all; God 
will take care of his own.' " St. Dominic, at the com- 
mencement of the carnage, wrote the pope regretting 
that he had so far been unable to destroy more than 20,- 
000 heretics. Mr. White further says: ''Over a quarter 
of a million victims was the result of the slaughter for her- 
esy in one province." 

Persecution of the Jews, 

When the supply of heretics and infidels gave out, the 
persecution of the Jews commenced at wholesale. 

It will be remembered that Christ was a Jew, that he 
followed in the wake of his early teachers, preaching the 
doctrines of Judaism, and finally, in common with several 
others, claimed to be the long-looked-for Jewish Messiah. 
His followers were for the first century looked upon by 
the Romans as a sect of the Jews, while by the Hebrews 
they were characterized as Nazarenes ; nor was it until the 
beginning of the second century that they threw ofif the 
old coat of Judaism and took on that of Christians. Now, 
as children of Israel, having in number outgrown the par- 
ent stock, and having learned to despise their ancestors, 
let us look at the action of the child toward its parent. 

The persecution of the despised race, as the Christians 
called the Jews, began at an early date. Finding the Jews 
too stubborn, the followers of the meek and lowly turned 
their attention to the world of pagans. As it is not the 
purpose of this work to go into details, we will pass over 



196 Commentaries on Hebrew 

the first nine centuries of Christian sway, with the state- 
ment that during that early time Christian doctrines had 
not fully ripened, the true Christian spirit had not fully 
developed, nor were the nations of Europe so far sunk 
in barbarism as to tolerate the enforcement of true Chris- 
tianity by fire and sword. That time was reached about 
the closelof the tenth century, when the Christian church 
held all Europe in its grasp ; kings and emperors trembled 
at the edicts and bulls of the vicegerent of Christ. As the 
octopus holds its victim in his death struggle, so the priest 
held the lives and Hberty of the people and their property 
in liis clerical fangs. When the mythological ruler belched 
forfh his decrees and hurled his anathemas, all was as si- 
lent as the grave; science had been nipped in the bud, no 
writings in conflict or antagonism to the church were al- 
lowed; all books, before publication, had to undergo in- 
spection by the church, and if found obnoxious in the 
slightest degree, were destroyed. All attempts by the peo- 
ple to acquire general knowledge were stamped upon, 
unless conducted under the supervision of the church. It 
was under this state of things that the humane and benev- 
olent spirit of Christianity dawned upon the followers of 
Abraham and Moses, by burning, roasting, torturing, 
maiming, and finally putting to death more than one-half 
of the Hebrew race. 

We forbear going into the refined Christian devices of 
torture, except to a limited extent, lest we shock the holy 
church and its mythologians, and thereby create a ten- 
dency to lessen their power, diminish their private in- 
comes and luxurious benefices and maintenance. 

It is well-established history that in France alone, thou- 
sands of Jews were burned at the stake. On one occasion 
one hundred and sixty men, women, and children were 



And Christian Mythology. 197 

bound hand and foot and thrown into a ditch, wood was 
piled on them, and the torch appHed, while numbers of 
priests stood by with uplifted hands calling on their Savior 
to witness the suffering of the unbeHeving Jews; whole 
families were burned in this funeral pyre for the reason 
that the pious Christians could not see them separated. 

Only few and far between, says one historian, were the 
Christian monarchs who rose above the barbarities of the 
church. 

From the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, says an- 
other historian, the history of the Jews is a succession of 
inass-acres. Philip Augustus confiscated their property 
and banished them from France. 

Louis IX, a very pious prince, says an historian, confis- 
cated a third of the property of the Jews for the benefit of 
his own soul, and at the same time issued an edict for the 
destruction of their sacred books by fire; in this fire four 
cartloads of the Talmud were consumed. 

A large share of this confiscated property was given 
over to the priests, to intercede with Christ for the salva- 
tion of the monarch's soul. 

J.n the reign of Philip the Fair, 1306 A. C, the Jews 
(having returned to France) were again expelled from the 
country with the usual accompaniment of cruelty, says 
another author. The financial condition of the country 
became embarrassed, and the Jews were permitted to re- 
turn. 

In 1321, a religious epidemic having seized the faithful, 
an uprising took place, when the poor, unfortunate Jews 
were, without regard to age or sex, indiscriminately 
slaughtered. In their flight and frenzy the Jews at Verdan 
threw their children into the streets to appease the infu- 
riated Christian mob. In the following year in whole 



198 Oomraentaries on Hebrew 

provinces every Jew was burned. Finally, in 1395, they 
were indiscriminately banished from middle France. 

In the time of the first crusading spirit, in the cities of 
Treves, Metz, Mainz, Worms, Spires, Strasburg, and 
other smaller places, the streets were deluged with the 
blood of the Jews and other unbelievers, at the hands of 
these pious warriors. 

The Jews were expelled from Vienna in 11 96; from 
Mecklenburg in 1225; from Breslau in 1226; from Bran- 
denburg in 1243; from Frankfort in 1241; from Munich 
in 1285; from Nuremburg in 1380; from Prague in 1391, 
and from Ratisbon in 1476. 

From 1346 to 1350 the Jews were murdered by 
thousands, until the race in Germany became nearly ex- 
tinct. 

In Switzerland the Christians commenced to persecute 
the Jews about the middle of the 14th century^ and in the 
15th they were expelled from the principal cities in that 
country. 

In Spain, during the sixth and seventh centuries, the 
Jews were persecuted without mercy. When the Moors 
invaded Spain, the Jews lent a helping hand, so glad were 
they to escape Christian tortures ; they were made equals 
v/herever the Moors held sway, while in the Christian 
provinces the persecutions were carried on in that refined 
manner known only to the followers of the cross. 

In 1391-92, in five provinces, held by the followers of 
Christ, untold numbers of Jews were murdered and their 
property was confiscated to the church. Escape, says one 
historian, was possible only through flight to Africa or by 
accepting baptism at the point of the sword. The number 
of converts so made at that time has been estimated at 
200,000. 



And Christian Mythology. 199 

Such a vast number of stubborn Jews, so quickly con- 
verted and thereby brought under the mild influence of 
Christianity, must have been as gratifying to the followers 
of Christ as assuring to the adherents of Moses. 

To say the least of it, this process is much more expedi- 
tious, if not more soothing and lasting, than the tedious 
mode of reasoning; besides, it is in strict accordance with 
the teachings and rules of the mythologian. 

In speaking of this affair, one writer says: 'The fate 
of the Jews in Spain during the fifteenth century beggars 
description." He further says: "Persecutions, violent 
conversions, massacre, the torture of the inquisition, we 
read of nothing else ! At length the hour of final horror 
came, when in 1492 an edict was issued from those pious 
rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella, by which the Jews were 
given four months within which to leave the. country' 
empty-handed, to accept baptism, or to sufTer death." 

I. being claimed by the priests that the teachings of 
Ciirist forbade the spilling of human blood, to avoid the 
breach of their master's precepts, these pious men ordered 
their victims to be burned to death. This the Jews well 
knew to be the fate of those who failed to leave their 
h(3mes and country or become Christians. The numbers 
wiio are said to have chosen to abandon the country in 
which they and their ancestors had resided for seven cent- 
uries have been variously estimated at from three to eight 
hundred thousand. Every person in Spain was forbidden 
to shelter or feed them in their transit, and almost every 
Christian country shut its doors against them. 

As they were forbidden to take away with them gold or 
silver, their condition was heart-rending in the extreme. 
All except the devout Christians, and, it is said, even 
some of these, shed tears over the departure of these 



200 Commentaries on Hebrew 

wretched beings; but from that divine order of priesthood 
not a tear dropped, nor was a moan heard to disturb the 
peace and tranquillity of their Christian souls. Some of 
the fugitives ventured into Italy and France, but by far 
the greater number turned their faces toward Morocco. 

Of all the vast hordes who left Spain, more than one- 
half died from exposure and hunger before reaching their 
destination. Some 80,000 bought of the Christian sover- 
eign of Portugal a stop-over privilege until they could 
earn money enough to go on. 

After the lapse of the time for their exit, many lingered, 
being unable to get away. King Emanuel, in the tender- 
ness of his Christian heart, sold into slavery many of the 
more common Jews, and by an edict he ordered all the 
children under fourteen years of age, of the better class, 
to be taken from their parents and turned over to the 
Christian brothers to be brought up in the true faith. 

This piece of refined cruelty drove many of the mothers 
to destroy their offspring rather than let them fall into 
the hands of their persecutors. Those who accepted 
forced baptism, but who for the most part secretly ad- 
hered to their old faith, were constantly on the rack of 
torture. 

The Reformation — Luther and Calvin, 

It will not do to say that these persecutions were all by 
the Catholics. During most of the time they were in 
progress, there was no other Christian church, but even 
after the Protestants gained the ascendency, there was no 
abatement of these cruelties. Luther and Calvin, while 
claiming the utmost liberty of conscience for themselves, 
denied it to all others. Luther denounced Copernicus, 
the astronomer, and, says his biographer, he looked with 



And Christian Mythology. 201 

a favorable eye on the adoption of violent measures for the 
conversion of the Jews and others. 

}Ie was extremely vile in the epithets which he appHed 
to men of learning, calling them such names as locusts, 
caterpillars, frogs, lice, etc. To Aristotle he applied the 
epithets of devil, prince of darkness, beast, impostor, liar, 
etc. 

No one can mistake the character of the man from the 
use of such language. 

As for Calvin, after he had fled from place to place to 
escape arrest and punishment for his opinions, he finally 
settled in Geneva, where he gained such influence and 
control as to establish ecclesiastical over civil law, thereby 
giving him power over that city. In 1555 he banished the 
officials for attempting to maintain civil institutions; to 
do this was, to Calvin, heresy. 

A controversy having arisen between Calvin and Ser- 
vetus on the dogma of the trinity, and the latter having 
fled to escape the wrath of the former, Calvin sent his 
emissaries to Vienna, where, in conjunction with the 
Catholics, he had Servetus arrested, brought to Geneva, 
tried for heresy, condemned, taken out on a hill near the 
city, tied to a stake, green wood piled around him and a 
fire applied, where Servetus was slowly roasted to death 
on Oct. 26, 1553. Shortly after this, Jerome Bolses raised 
a point as to Calvin's doctrine of predestination. To this 
Calvin told Bolses that no dissenting opinions would be 
tolerated; Bolses, not recanting, was banished from the 
city. 

An author, in speaking of the hardships of the Jews, 
says: 'That the Reformation gave no aid to the Jews is 
only too plain, from the fact that in many parts of Protest- 
ant Germany their lot became harder than before." 



^02 Commentaries on Hebrew 

The Jews were driven out of Protestant Bavaria in 
1553; out of Brandenburg in 1573. In the Protestant city 
of Hamburg, in 1730, they were persecuted in the most 
inhuman manner; and during the whole of the seven- 
teenth and a part of the eighteenth centuries Protestant 
Germany increased its persecutions. This author con- 
cludes by saying: ''What really caused the change in 
their favor was the great uprising of human reason that 
marked the middle of the eighteenth century." 

Notwithstanding that Luther was petulant, dogmatical, 
and intolerant, he had some good qualities ; but as to Cal- 
vin, his biography stands in the way of saying anything 
good of him; among his crimes that of the murder of 
Servetus can never be excused. 

At the present time the Jews have had their property 
confiscated and are being driven out of Russia by the 
Christian emperor of that country, on the ground that 
they cannot and do not believe in the dogmas of Chris- 
tianity. All who will accept baptism and become Chris- 
tians are exempt from this cruel edict. 

The Puritans fled from Europe to America to avoid 
persecution for rehgious opinions, but no sooner had they 
set foot on the soil of New England than they enacted 
the most cruel penal laws and enforced them on all dis- 
senters. 

Prof. Huxley says : 'Tf we could only see in one view 
the torrents of hypocrisy and cruelty, the lies, the slaugh- 
ter, the violation of every obligation of honesty which have 
llowed from this source along the course of the history of 
Christian nations, our imagination of hell would pale be- 
side the vision." He further says : ''And the wolf would 
play the same havoc now if it could only get its blood- 
stained jaws free from the muzzle imposed by the secular 



And Christian Mythology. 203 

arm." Yes, the clerical wolf lets go only when he is 
forced to do so, and then only drops one bone at a time. 

Under the enlightened influence of reason, science, and 
growing humanity, fiery Hades has fallen into disrepute, 
and the more enlightened of the clergy have adopted 
courses of lectures instead of sermons wherein the tor- 
ments of hell used to be portrayed from the pulpits in all 
their hideousness. 

Dark Ages. 

We now offer in evidence the shadow of the dark ages, 
covering a period of a thousand years, from the fifth to the 
fifteenth century, when the church held absolute dominion 
and sway over every government and people of Europe. 
Under its exercise of power, religion took the place of 
learning; monasteries and cloisters took the place of col- 
leges; monks, bishops, and priests took the place of states- 
men; ecclesiastical dogmas the place of civil law; the 
thumbscrew, sharpened spikes, and other devices such 
only as devout Christians could invent, took the place ol 
free thought; prayers and images took the place of sci- 
ence and art, libraries were burned, and all reading was 
forbidden. 

The first society for the promotion of physical science, 
founded at Naples by Baptista Porta, and the Accademia 
del Ciemento, established at Florence, 1657, were sup- 
pressed by the ecclesiastical authorities. 

Galileo, for having committed the crime of discover- 
ing that the earth revolved on its axis, Copernicus 
for having discovered that the planets revolved around the 
sun, and Bruno for having announced the plurality oi 
worlds, were each told by the church that such things 
were against the Bible, and could not be promulgated 



204 Commentaries on Hebrew 

under pain of death. Bruno was burned at the stake for 
refusing to recant. Vanini, one of Italy's brightest schol- 
ars, for the offense of being the author of some philo- 
sopj?ical works, was arrested at Taurisona, tried, and con- 
victt d of heresy, tied to a stake, told to put out his tongue, 
and on refusal, it was drawn out with irons and cut off; a 
fire was kindled around him, when his sufferings were re- 
lieved by death, July 9, 161 9. 

Nypatia, one of the most refined ladies of Alexandria, 
a teacher of mathematics and philosophy to the most 
learned men of the Roman Empire, was, by order of 
Bishop Cyril, stripped naked by a gang of monks, who 
dragged her from the academy through the streets, took 
her into a church, where they murdered her, after which 
they scraped the flesh off the bones with shells and 
burned it. This piece of Christian refinement took place 
in the year 414 A. C, and was, as Cyril said, done as a 
warning to others not to teach doctrines antagonistic to 
the church. 

Following this act, and in obedience to the church. 
Justinian, the devout emperor, closed all of the philosoph- 
ical schools of Athens. We here offer these humane acts 
in evidence in support of the almost daily assertions of 
the pope and his satellites that their church has always 
been the friend and supporter of liberty of speech, freedom 
of action, and human progress. 

Crime and reHgion are fellow-companions; science, 
progress, and humanity were dead; the church was happy, 
while monks, priests, bishops, and clergymen shouted 
psalms, hymns, prayers, and doxologies over the grave. 



And Christian Mytliology. 205 

Witch-burning by the Cliurch. 

'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." — Exodus xxii, 
i8. 

*'A man, also a woman, that hath a familiar spirit, or 
that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death." — Leviticus 
XX, 27. 

''And Saul had put away those that had famihar spirits 
and the wizards out of the land." — I Samuel xxviii, 3. 

Let the following records tell how well the church 
obeyed these commands and precepts of the holy Bible. 

In spite of Christianity the world having outgrown the 
inquisition, it was left for the church to hunt up another 
class of victims, and this it was not slow to do. 

It now turns its shafts of vengeance and pours its vials 
of pious wrath on another innocent class, denominated 
witches; a class supposed to be in league with the devil 
a;?ainst the church and all good Christians. 

The following comprises a few of the first pages of this 
record: 

In 1484 Pope Innocent issued a bull to punish witches; 
under this decree tens of thousands were burned alive, 
says Bishop Hutchinson. On May 30, 143 1, Joan of Arc 
was burned at the stake. In three months of the year 
1524 five hundred were burned in Germany. The total 
number burned in Germany alone, says Mr. Hutchinson, 
reached the incredible number of 100,000. In 1520 an in- 
credible number were burned in France, the figures not 
given. Nine hundred were burned between 1580 and 
1595 at Wurzburg. At Leinheim thirty were burned in 
four years, out of a population of six hundred. In 1634 
the parish priest of London was burned on a charge of be- 
witching a whole convent. In 1654 twenty women were 



206 Commentaries on Hebrew 

burned at Beslague. In 1749 Renata was burned at 
Wurtenburg. On Jan. 17, 1775, at Kalis, Poland, nine 
women were burned on a charge of bewitching, and 
thereby rendering land unproductive. In 1664 Sir Mat- 
thew Hale burned two. In 1670 eighteen were burned in 
Essex, England. From 1775 to 1777 nine were burned 
in Northampton, England. In 1716 Mrs. Hix and her 
daughter, aged nine years, were hung as witches at Hunt- 
ingdon. 

The historian Harrington estimates the total number 
of witches burned in England at 30,000. 

Mr. Henry Charles Lee, in his ''History of the Inquisi- 
tion," says that Protestants and Catholics rivaled each 
other in the madness of the hour ; witches were no longer 
burned in ones and twos, but in scores and hundreds. He 
further says that the Bishop of Geneva burned five hun- 
dred in three months ; that a Bishop of Ramburg burned 
six hundred; a Bishop of Wurzburg burned nine hun- 
dred; that eight hundred were condemned in a body at 
Savoy; that in the spring of 1556 the Archbishop of 
Treves burned one hundred and eighteen women, and 
that Bishop Paramo boasted that in a century and a half 
the holy office had burned at least 50,000. 

Estimates of the total number of witches put to death 
by the church run from seven and a half to fourteen 
millions ; nine millions, says one author, would be a con- 
servative statement. 

In Salem, Mass., nineteen were hanged, eight others 
were condemned, fifty confessed and were pardoned. 

Will some kind teacher of divinity advise us to whom 
credit is due for the destruction of so many cruel witches? 
Shall it be given to Jehovah, to the Bible, to the myth- 
ologian, or to the general humane spirit of the Christian 



And Christian Mythology. 207 

system — a system resting on its code, the Bible, a book 
made up largely of a heterogeneous mass of absurdities, 
contradictions, childish jargon, myths, legends, and su- 
preme nonsense; a sublime production, well worthy the 
genius and combined wisdom of popes, priests, bishops, 
and ecumenical councils; a book extremely edifying and 
instructive to the devout because of its incomprehensible 
vagaries, giving scope to a vast number of speculations 
and theories, ending in guesses, disagreements, inter- 
minable disputes and quarrels, and the slaughter of mill- 
ions of innocent men, women, and children. 

The Pope and the Priesthood. 

The bull of Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII, promul- 
gated 1075, specially directed against Henry IV of Ger- 
many, among other matters, contains the following pro- 
visions: The Roman church was founded by God. The 
Roman pontiff is universal. The pope may use the in- 
signia of empire. He is the only person whose feet are 
kissed by all princes; he may depose emperors. No 
scriptures or books are canonical without his authority. 
His decrees can be annulled by no one. He may be 
judged by no one. No one may dare to condemn a per- 
son who appeals to the pope. The Roman church has 
never erred, nor ever, by the witness of scripture, shall 
err, to all eternity. The pope may absolve subjects 
from their allegiance. Let it not be forgotten that the 
church never changes ; its decrees and bulls once promul- 
gated are always in force, and apply equally to all Chris- 
tians, Protestants as well as Catholics, and we must re- 
member that the Roman hierarchy has never faltered in 
the use of its powers to enforce its will. Its sole object is 
dominion. When it deems it expedient it suspends its 



208 Commentaries on Hebrew 

decrees. Whenever it has had the power, it has used it to 
depose and excommunicate emperors and kings and drive 
their people into rebelHon against the civil authorities. 
Pope Gregory VII spent his official Hfe in attempting to 
overthrow the civil governments of Europe. He suc- 
ceeded in driving the people of Germany into rebellion 
against Henry IV, and he died in exile fighting civil so- 
ciety. We must remember that the Jesuitical Society is the 
arm of the papacy; that it possesses great learning, policy, 
and address, and is full of craft and deceit ; that in coun- 
tries where it has been established, it has secured, by art 
and diplomacy, vast tracts of land which it has used to 
foster and fortify its position. Mexico, the Central and 
South American states, and most of the states of Europe, 
for self-protection, found it necessary to banish this peo- 
ple from their countries and confiscate their property. 
After being driven from other lands, the Society of Jesus 
planted itself in the United States, where in conjunction 
with the Roman priesthood, it is scheming to establish 
Romanism on the ruins of American civil institutions. 
While this is going on under orders from the banks of the 
Tiber, the great body of American Protestant clergymen 
are demanding that their God be put into the Federal 
Constitution. Not content with this, they are making the 
air resound with their babbling clamors that their nefa- 
rious Sunday blue laws be adopted by the State and Fed- 
eral governments, and thereby deprive the people, for at 
least one day of the week, of their natural rights. This 
same doleful howl is also going up from the pulpits of 
England. We ask, in all seriousness, if the time has not 
come for free action, as well as free thought, if the Amer- 
ican people are to retain the liberties vouchsafed to them 
bv the sword of Washington and the pen of Jefferson, 



And Cltrhtkin Mythology, 209 

And here the question comes back once more, this time 
from, the graves of over 30,000,000 of innocent men, 
women, and children, surroimded by burning fagots or 
tortured with ever}' instrument that Christian ingenuity 
and zeal could devise, whether the world would not have 
been better off if the church had never existed. 

Having disposed of this humane branch of the case, 
and while waiting the verdict of the country, let us look 
into some of the wise acts of the church and its priests. 

Trial and Punishment of Quadrupeds and Insects by 
the Ctiurch, 

The mythologian, having exhausted his powers in the 
punishment of mankind, turns with delight to a new field 
of action, where without let or hindrance he can hurl his 
ecclesiastical shafts at the lower order of the animal 
world. Unlike the humanity of the poor Hindu, who is 
taught by his religion to extend kindness to the beast, 
the reptile, and even the insect, the teacher of Christianity 
can see no reason why, if man is punished, the quadruped 
and insect should not be. 

As this new field opened a wide range for the display of 
the intellectual powers of the priest, he established his 
ecclesiastical court for the trial, condemnation, and pun- 
ishment of bulls, pigs, reptiles, and insects. 

Incredible as it may appear to the people in this en- 
lightened age. it is nevertheless historically true, that from 
the 1 2th to the i6th centurv-, the lower animals and even 
insects were tried by the ecclesiastical tribunals; some 
were condemned and executed, while others were excom- 
municated. 

In 1410 the Bishop of Laon (France), after a regular 
trial, pronounced an injunction against caterpillars and 



210 Commentaries on Hebrew 

field mice. Full details exist of the trial of a hog in 1494, 
wherein it is set forth that the hog was duly sentenced, 
and strangled on a gibbet. In 1497 a sow was tried, con- 
demned, and beaten to death for having eaten oflf a child's 
chin in the village of Chroroune; in 1386 Bishop Folais 
condemned a sow to be mutilated and thereafter hung. 
Numerous cases of the trial of bulls are reported. 

In 1587 proceedings were instituted against beetles for 
ravages in the vineyards of St. Julian ; the beetles having 
disappeared, the proceedings were dismissed; having re- 
appeared forty years thereafter, proceedings were revived. 

In the ''History of the Swiss Reformation," by De 
Ruchat, many such trials appear, wherein full details of 
the proceedings are given, too silly and ridiculous to merit 
contempt. In one case the trial was of cockroaches at 
Lansome; after trial the insects were condemned in the 
name of the holy trinity and the blessed Virgin. 

The same author narrates a case wherein a miraculous 
image was a witness against a pig. 

It will be remembered that a few years ago the great 
state of Minnesota was overrun with grasshoppers; they 
seemed to come up out of the very bowels of the earth, 
and were so numerous as to threaten the destruction of 
every green thing in the land. The people sought every 
means to get rid of them, to no avail. The opportune 
moment had arrived when the specially ordained agents 
of Jehovah were to take a hand in the fray ; notices were 
sent to the clergymen everywhere, a day was fixed for the 
general onslaught, by prayers and anathemas; the day 
dawned, the trial commenced, when over two thousand 
mythologians hurled from their rostrums the sacred jave- 
lin until, as we may imagine, not a hopper was left to tell 
the tale of that direful conflict. Whether the sun stood 



And Christian Mythology, 211 

still to allow these Joshuas to finish their work, we are not 
advised, but we may imagine that the sun went down on 
a scene of desolation. 

After such evidence, who will doubt the potency of 
prayer in the extermination of pestilential hoppers, licen- 
tious bugs and unbelievers? 

Whatever may be said as to the fact that these hoppers 
did not have their day in court, that they were not as- 
signed counsel by this clerical tribunal, that they did not 
have an opportunity to face their accusers or to cross- 
examine witnesses, it will not be denied that these hoppers 
were tried by their peers. 

Since writing the foregoing, we are advised by tele- 
graph that the devout believers at the foot of Mount Etna 
are praying to stop the flow of lava, which in obedience to 
the law of gravitation is running down the mountain. 

In closing this branch of the subject it may truthfully 
be said that for what liberty we now possess, we are 
largely indebted to the divisions and dissensions in the 
church, and the indifference manifested by so many of its 
lay members, who give no thought, heed, or concern to 
the making of proselytes. They have nothing to gain, 
hence their indifiference. Not so with the priest or myth 
ologian, whose influence, authority, power, and salary de- 
pend on the number of votaries he can draw into his web. 
It is he who, from the dawn of the persecutions to the 
present time, directed and carried on all the inhuman and 
barbarous persecutions that have so signally marked the 
progress of the church and the spirit of Christianity, at 
the expense of liberty, knowledge, and humanity. 

The ordinary mythologian lives to-day in the bygone 
ages; progress with him is an impossibility; his world of 
thought is confined to his Bible and its teachings. Stand- 



212 Commentaries on Hebrew 

ing on this vast pedestal of clerical arrogance, he unfolds 
his hymn-book and sings psalms to the credulous multi- 
tude. With his prayers he can change the laws of the 
universe, bring down the wrath of heaven, destroy grass- 
hoppers and other pestilential insects, and cause copious 
showers to descend on the parched-up earth. He listens 
to the talk between Eve and the serpent as to the pro- 
priety of eating an apple. He sees the Almighty walking 
in the shade, and hears him call to Adam. He is present 
at the building of the ark. After the storm has subsided, 
he helps Noah out of the ship, builds the sacrificial fire,, 
and smells a sweet savor. He knows that as the child 
bloweth his soap bubble to float on the soft air, so the 
great ''I am," by a single breath, brought forth from the 
fathomless realms of nothingness our earth, with its at- 
tendant satellites, the sun to give light to man by day, and 
the moon and stars to illuminate his course by night. He 
knows that all these things were created in a single day 
He remembers the fall of Adam, and knows that Moses 
wrote the Pentateuch, and that it was written by the com- 
mand of the Almighty on Mount Sinai. He was present 
when the children of Israel came out of Egypt, and knows 
that Pharaoh and his army were lost in the Red Sea. 

All of these things, and several others, this primate 
knows, because his Bible tells him so, and this book, being 
the work of inspiration, is necessarily true, and all science 
in conflict with its teachings is to him false. 

There is another class, the explanatory homo, who, in 
attempting to retain his power and influence over the 
multitude, is trying to explain away and adjust the con- 
flicts between his Bible and science. Poor fellow, he de- 
serves our sympathy, for his task is a hard one. 

Lastly, there is a third class, which seeing no escape 



And Christian Mythology. 213 

from the deadly conflict between science and religion, is 
throwing off its clerical robes, and its members one by 
one are taking their places in the field of science. Thus it 
will be seen that even the mythologian has not escaped 
the laws of nature. He first made his appearance in the 
post-tertiary period as a simple protoplastic Pator, from 
which evolved the conjuror, the soothsayer, the diviner, 
the prophet, the rabbi, the priest, and the theologian; at 
all times, and in each stage, a mediator between Gods and 
men. Having thus fulfilled the laws of evolution, and 
reached an age of science in which no oracle can live, he 
is ready to deposit his bones with those of other extinct 
mammals. 

In his "Service of Man," J. C. Morison, speaking from 
an English standpoint, very properly says: ''The general 
tendency of opinion shows that in the near future Chris- 
tianity must disappear from among the more advanced 
populations of the globe, for it is no longer tenable by 
educated people." 

Mythology or Hindustan. 

Brahma, whose name is used in the masculine, femi- 
nine, and neuter, stands at the head of the Gods of the 
Hindu pantheon — the soul of the universe. He is called 
in Sanscrit. Trimurti, and in his three genders, or phases, 
he is Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Resolved back into a 
unit, like the Christian trinity, the three become one, and 
that one is Brahma or Trimurti. 

Brahma represents the principles of creation, preserva- 
tion, and destruction. 

Vishnu is sometimes called the creator, and as such is 
represented by the sun in its onward course through the 
heavens, when he takes on the character of the Egyptian 



214 Gomraentaries on Hebrew 

trinity at dawn, meridian, and setting. Vishnu, like Je- 
hovah, is described as allowing a portion of himself, in the 
form of a man, begotten by Brahma and incarnate, to de- 
scend to earth for the salvation of mankind. 

The Hindu code of morals, or religious teaching, 
closely resembles the teachings of Buddha and Confu- 
cius. 

The Hindus have a legend that, Vishnu having fallen 
asleep, the demon Hayagaiva stole the Vedas; Vishnu 
assumes the form of a fish, reveals to Menu a coming flood 
to destroy the world, tells Menu that there will be sent to 
him a ship, and orders that he take animals and seeds into 
the ship. The deluge came as foretold and destroyed all 
life on the earth, and when the flood subsided, Vishnu 
taught Menu all that was pure and good. 

Mythology of Ancient Persia, 

Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, the founder or reformer of 
Persian mythology, is supposed to have been an Iranian, 
born in Bactria. Like Christ and Mohammed, he left no 
writings; his teachings were reduced to writing some time 
after his death, by his disciples at different times; amended 
and modified at a much later date. The date of his birth 
is unknown ; there is a wide divergence of opinion on this 
point, but from the best authority we have, the time of his 
birth was not later than 1800 B. C. His teachings, or 
supposed teachings, are contained in the Zend-Avesta, or 
Avesta. 

Zoroaster claimed, or it is claimed for him, as for all 
other founders of religions, that these sacred writings 
came directly from the lips of Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd). 
This divinity told Zoroaster that he once conferred all 
power on Yima, who ruled the earth for a thousand years, 



And Christian Mythology, 215 

during which time there was no death, all was perfect 
happiness; that Yima then sinned, fell from grace, and was 
cast out into the world of darkness, where he, in the form 
of a serpent, wandered over the earth, enticing men away 
from Ahura Mazda. 

Zoroaster, like Christ, was taken up into a mountain b) 
Yima, the evil one, and offered the whole earth if he would 
turn from his religion. 

Dr. Haug, Windischmann, Spiegel, et al, say that the 
belief in immortality was one of the principal dogmas oi 
Zoroaster, believed by many to have been borrowed from 
Persia by the Christians. These authors further say that 
the Jewish and Christian notions of a Messiah were bor- 
rowed from Mosiosh, who occupied a similar position in 
the mythology of Zoroaster. He, like Christ, was be- 
gotten by a God, and his last office was to awake the dead 
and bring them to judgment. 

Chinese Philosophy and Transmigration, 

Buddha, the Chinese philosopher, was born in Hindu- 
stan; the time of his birth is unknown. Writers have 
speculated on the time, varying from 600 to 2000 years 
B. C. When we know that his teachings had attained a 
foothold in India and China as early as 550 B. C, the time 
of his birth could not have been later than about 1000 
B.C. 

In thus giving 1000 years B. C. as the date of the birth 
of Buddha, I am not unmindful of the fact that probably 
a majority of modern writers fix that event at from five to 
six hundred years B. C, but they give no satisfactory 
reasons therefor, while Penny, in his encyclopaedia, fixes 
a thousand years, and says that numerous recent Chinese 
and Japanese writers concur on from twelve to ten hun- 



216 Commentaries on HebreiO 

dred years, and that the writers who give earlier dates 
confound some one of the early sages with Buddha, and 
that those who give the latest dates confound some one of 
the later Buddhas with the founder of the sect. 

It is said that he (Buddha) was a prince by the name of 
Siddhartha; his mother died in his infancy; he was reared 
by his aunt, Gautama, hence he is sometimes called 
Gautama, and at others Buddha, signifying wisdom and 
goodness. 

Chinese tradition says he was born of a virgin named 
Maya, amid great miracles; was in later life tempted by 
an evil spirit, called Mara, which he defied. He com- 
menced his teachings in his native country, where he en- 
countered the enmity of the Brahmans, in consequence of 
which he fled into northwestern India, where he success- 
fully propagated his philosophy for about forty years, 
when he died. He left no writings. 

After his death his principal followers met in council, 
and proceeded to reduce his teachings to waiting. 

Buddhism rests on human existence, and the philos- 
ophy which prevailed among the Brahmans. 

The doctrine of transmigration, in all its essential feat- 
ures similar to that which prevailed in Egypt and India, 
was in all probability borrowed some time after the death 
of Buddha, since which time the Chinaman has been 
taught that after death he is to pass through some or all 
of the lower animals, according to his fitness; when he is 
to become a perfect being. 

Buddha claimed, or his followers claimed for him, that 
he had passed through all these stages of existence, and 
finally attained a state of perfection. 

The Chinaman is now taught that this state of things 



And Christian Mythology. 217 

is brought about by, and is the result of, the inherent 
force of matter under general laws. 

Contrary to general belief, Buddhism recognizes no 
supreme being; hence all Buddhist nations and peoples, 
says an eminent writer, are essentially atheists. In this 
respect Buddhism differs from Brahmanism, which as- 
serts an universal spirit in nature. 

The Buddhist philosophy teaches and enjoins general 
love of all mankind and even the lower order of animals ; 
to love our enemies, to abstain from even defensive war- 
fare; avoid all vice, inculcate virtue; be obedient to par- 
ents, provide food, shelter, and comfort for man and 
animals, respect all religions, and persecute no dissenters. 
Honor your own faith, and do not slander that of others, 
is a Buddhist maxim. 

Universal charity and toleration of all other beliefs, says 
an historian, is one of the Buddhist cardinal virtues, and 
he says the persecution of Christians in China does not 
grow out of rehgion, but is the result of the meddlesome 
character of the missionaries. 

However much the Christians took from the pagan 
nations, it is quite certain that they did not borrow from 
the Chinese, or others, either charity or toleration. 

Asoka, king of ]\Iagadha, for a time persecuted the fol- 
lowers of Buddha, but thereafter, like Paul, he by a mir- 
acle became converted, and like Constantine, made the 
new teachings national. 

Buddhism is taught in China, Japan, Ceylon, Siam, 
Burmah, Nepal, and Tibet, to 450,000,000 of people. 

After the death of Gautama Buddha, his disciples, 
about 250 B. C, reduced to writing the teachings of their 
master, thereby forming a canon of sacred writings. 

Some time after this, tradition, contrarv to the belief and 



218 Commentaries on Hebrew 

teachings of Buddha, assigned him a place at the head of 
immortal spirits, and threw around his birth and life a net- 
work of legends, wherein it is said that he was conceived 
of a virgin b\ the soul of the universe ; that while the vir- 
gin was on her way to visit some friends, she gave birth to 
Buddha beneath the shade of a Bo-tree (holy tree), over 
which spirits hovered to protect him ; that sages from afar 
ofif came and worshiped him; and that when a small boy 
he surpassed his teachers in knowledge. From the age 
of nineteen until twenty-nine tradition loses sight of him. 

At the age of twenty-nine Buddha goes into the wilder- 
ness for study and meditation, where he is tempted by an 
evil spirit called Mara, who ofifers him the kingdoms of 
the four quarters of the earth to forego his philosophical 
teachings; he spurns the offer, and seeks his disciples in 
the mountains, where they renew their devotion to their 
old teacher. He instructs them to separate, go to the 
four quarters of the earth and preach his gospel of truth, 
virtue, and purity, until all ends in Nirvana (eternal 
death), the home of peace beyond the ocean of existence, 
to the shore of salvation, where death ends all suffering 
and all existence. 

Buddha goes to Sena, in the desert, to commune with 
the hermit philosophers, who warn him of approaching 
enemies. 

In answer to questions of these hermits, Buddha says : 
"If they revile me, I will make no reply; if they strike me, 
I will not resent the injury; and if they kill me, death is no 
evil, but eternal rest." 

His disciples, about 250 B. C, reduced to writing his 
sayings, among which was: "When I have passed away, 
do not think that Buddha has left you, for he is still in 
your midst ; revere my memory, love one another, remem- 



And Christian Mythology. 219 

ber that which causes life causes death and decay, let your 
minds be filled with truth, and do good to all mankind." 

The ston- put into the mouth of Christ by the authors 
of the gospels i? quite a good copy of the teachings of 
Buddha, except that Buddha recognized no God or 
future existence. 

Buddha possessed all the learning of his day, and his 
followers were of the highest order of intelligence. 

Gautama Buddha taught the pluraHty of worlds, that 
nothing is eternal, that one Hfe passes and another takes 
its place, that the higher forms evolve from the lower, and 
that all things are the result of natural law. 

One of this great philosopher's cardinal doctrines was 
to be kind and tender, not only to all mankind, but to 
beasts and even insects, to injure no Hving thin^. and re- 
vile no rehgious teachings. 

While the atheists of China were following the teach- 
ings of this great humanitarian, extending the utmost 
toleration to all counter-opinions, nursing and feeding 
sick animals, going out of their way to avoid treading on 
insects, and even filtering the water they drank, lest they 
should swallow and thereby destroy the lives of animal- 
cules, the Christian priests were torturing and murdering 
millions of innocent men, women, and children. 

The priests of Rome were too busy in forging the 
biography of their mythical Christ, and copying therein 
the legends concerning Buddha, to even think of ob- 
serving any of his humanitarian teachings. 

Kong-fu-tse, or Confucius, the Chinese sage, was bom 
June 19, 551 B. C. at Shang Ping, in the httle kingdom 
of Loo. His real name was Kong, but his disciples 
added fu-tse, signifying teacher. He taught pure phi- 
losophy, morals, rhetoric, and politics, rejecting all super- 



220 Commentaries on Hebrew 

natural things and religions as unworthy of considera- 
tion. Having been asked whether any one sentence could 
express the conduct most fitting for one's whole life, he 
replied: ''Do not unto others what you would not have 
them do to you." After traveling over a large part of 
the empire teaching his philosophy, he died at seventy 
years of age. 

After his death temples were erected to his memory in 
nearly all of the cities. He recognized no supreme 
power outside of nature and nature's laws in the universe ; 
doubted the existence of mind in matter; looked on the 
universe as existing from eternity, and self-sustaining. 

His five cardinal virtues were universal charity, impar- 
tial justice, conformity to established rules, rectitude in 
heart and mind, and pure sincerity. He, as a materialist, 
appealed to practical men, and claimed no knowledge as 
to future existence. His disciples, unHke those of found- 
ers of religions, were of the highest and most intellectual 
order; in fact, says a biographer, the entire literary class 
were his followers. 

Notwithstanding the non-recognition of a supreme in- 
telligence, the populace in China, as elsewhere, must have 
something to venerate, and so there grew up in later 
years a system of worship of heroes and demigods, and 
along with this system, naturally grew up a priesthood, 
which, like that class everywhere, claimed to be able to 
commune with the spirits of departed heroes and friends. 
Disagreements and dissensions having sprung up, the 
fabric broke up into three parts, the Buddhists, Con- 
fucians, and Taoists, all of whom sacrificed to the sun, 
moon, mountains, and rivers, and off^ered up prayers to 
the departed souls of great men. Joss being worshiped 
as a great general. Their prayers, like those of some 



And Christian Mythology. 221 

Christian sects, have been reduced to fixed forms, con- 
sisting of such phrases as *'I take refuge with Buddha"; 
'1 take refuge with Confucius." 

In the course of time a device, or macliine, was invented 
in the form of a hollow cylinder, on different parts of 
which the prayer was written ; the cylinder was turned by 
a crank bringing to view the prayer. Some of these 
machines were ponderous, and were set in the roadway 
for passers-by, who by a kick of the foot turned up the 
prayer. Others were small, and were carried around by 
the devotee. 

Whatever may be thought of this device, it is certainly 
just as potent and effectual as, and much more convenient 
than, the Christian system. 

Buddhism was introduced into Japan 552 A. C, where 
it underwent some modification by a mixture with the 
worship of the great sun Goddess. 

There, as in China, the intelligent class are atheists, fol- 
lowing Buddha and Confucius. 

Mythology of Egypt. 

Having heretofore considered the Gods of Egypt, we 
will here speak only of its system of morals and religion. 
An Egyptologist has said that this people attained an 
extraordinary degree of perfection. They believed in a 
future existence; that at death the good and bad deeds 
were weighed in scales; Toth stood by to keep the ac- 
count. If the good deeds preponderated, the soul en- 
tered at once the boat of the sun ; otherwise the unhappy 
being began a round of transmigrations through the 
bodies of animals. The length of time in the transit, and 
the number and kind of animals in which the spirit lived, 
depended on its depravity at death. If after a long so- 



222 Commentaries on Hebrew 

journ there were found incurable souls, complete anni- 
hilation took place. The Egyptian code, like that of 
India, Persia, and China, but unlike that of the Chris- 
tians, required good works, instead of mere faith and be- 
lief. Egyptian religion required all to be industrious, to 
feed the hungry, relieve the oppressed, do no violence, 
hold no malice, be just and true, offer no offense, oppress 
no widow, imprison no one, allow no one to go hungr>', 
and grant no favors to the rich over the poor. 

Mythology of Greece, 

The fundamental ideas of the religion of Greece were 
brought from the northwest of India, which is believed to 
have been the cradle of the Hellenic stock. In later years 
Egypt and Phoenicia brought in their Gods, and to some 
extent modified the religion. The adding of new divini- 
ties created no conflict; all were blended into one har- 
monious system. Justice toward all men lay at the 
foundation of their religion. They entertained a vague 
idea of a future existence, which was more strongly 
marked when applied to great men and heroes. Extra- 
ordinary crimes were punished in Hades, or the more ter- 
rible Tartarus. They had a council of twelve divinities, 
at the head of which stood Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo. 
Numerous other and lesser Gods filled up the Pantheon, 
many of whom were mortal heroes, sprung from the em- 
brace of Gods and the beautiful daughters of men. The 
religion on the whole was bright and joyous, and among 
the mildest and most tolerant of the ancient creeds. The 
office of the priest was limited to the care of the temples 
and sacred property, the recitation of formulas, and the 
expounding of the divine will, expressed in oracles. 

They had a trinity, says Sir Gardner Wilkinson, con- 



And Christian Mythology. 223 

sisting of Osiris, the masculine principle. Isis, the femi- 
nine, and Onis. the offspring. 

Comparison of the Different Religions, 

There is a close resemblance in all the systems, show- 
ing a continuous unbroken line of descent from the earli- 
est to the latest. 

In all except Judaism there are numerous divinities, 
the Christians having the least number; in all there is a 
clearly defined head, or supreme ruler, who not only rules 
over men, but over all lesser Gods. They all have a 
dual principle, good and evil; the good is controlled by 
celestial beings, and the evil is with them all represented 
by a serpent. The strangest part of it is, that they all 
have a trinity; and that trinity, with all of them, is capa- 
ble of uniting itself into one and dissolving itself back 
into three beings at will ; and in most of them one of the 
personages of the triad has been begotten of a beautiful 
woman by one of the Gods. 

In this mythological category we have not included the 
Chinese, for, strictly speaking, theirs is not a religion, un- 
less we can call the worship of departed ancestors by the 
more ignorant, a religion. 

The systems taught by Buddha and Confucius were 
pure philosophy, for nowhere is there to be found in their 
teachings any word signifying a supreme being. 

As for the morals of the various systems, they speak for 
themselves. All except Christianity require good 
works, and promise salvation on no other terms; while 
Christianity alone requires nothing but naked faith, a 
behef in its Sa\4or. and probably a slight sprinkling of 
cold water. 

While there are other appendages attached to it, they 



224: Commentaries on Hebrew 

are not prerequisites, nor in any way essential to salva- 
tion. A man can, under the Christian scheme, remain a 
hardened criminal all his life, and if he believes at the last 
moment, he can get from his priest a clean bill of morals 
on payment of fees, and pass without let or hindrance to 
the realms of paradise. 

It is no wonder that Bauer deemed it the duty of the 
civil government to suppress this criminal, fraudulent 
thing, called Christianity. In this opinion all good men 
should concur, and ask that the millions of dollars ex- 
pended in support of the church and its mountebanks, be 
turned over to the poor. 

We have made an estimate from the best data we could 
obtain, from which we find the result to be, that if the 
money annually wasted in sustaining useless religions 
were turned into proper channels it would feed and clothe 
all the poor of the world. 

Conflict Between Science and Religion. 

There is no room to question the fact that science and 
religion are, as they ever have been, in deadly conflict. 

Astronomy has filled endless space with worlds and 
systems of worlds that have existed from eternity. Re- 
ligion has created but a single world, our little earth, and 
lighted it, for the sole benefit of man, with a little sun and 
moon, and a few little stars, all made in a single day, and 
created out of nothing. 

Science reveals our earth as a globe revolving on its 
axis and around the sun. 

Religion makes the earth a flat surface, and carries the 
sun around it. Religious man, in his ignorance, stops 
the sun to fight his battles, while science tolerates no 
quietude in the universe. 



And Christian Mythology. 225 

Religion created the first man a perfect being; science 
found him a savage. Rehgion put him in a paradise; 
science found him in a wilderness. Religion degraded 
him as time passed on, while science advances him in the 
scale of humanity and reason. 

Religion created this earth about 6,000 years ago, and 
peopled it in the short space of six days; science goes 
back countless millions of years to find its beginning, and 
then carries it through other millions of years before man 
m.ade his appearance on it. Religion finds a powerful 
being, in the image of a man, residing in the heavens, who 
out of nothing made the universe! Science finds force 
or gravitation to be a property of matter, and a sufficient 
cause for the existence and maintenance of the universe. 
Science teaches that planets are born, live to old age, and 
die; that they begin as tenuous gas, become fluid, solidify, 
live in the vegetable and animal epochs, and finally, like 
our moon, revolve as dead bodies; that our sun and other 
suns are still in their infancy, in time to become solid 
bodies fit for habitation. 

What Is Life? 

What is life? is a question asked by some of the ablest 
naturalists; and they further ask, whether it is unchange- 
able and indissoluble matter permeating the universe and 
creating the forms of life, or whether it is ordinary mat- 
ter of aggregated atoms, returning to its original ele- 
ments when its work is done. 

Modern science, says Huxley, sustains the latter 
hypothesis ; under whatever guise it takes refuge, whether 
fungus or oak, worm or man, the living protoplasm not 
only dies and is resolved into its mineral constituents, but 
it is always dying that it may live: protoplasm, in what- 



226 Commentaries on Hebrew 

ever form, is the germ of life; all forms of protoplasm 
contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen; and 
science has failed, with the microscope or otherwise, to 
discover the slightest difference between the protoplasm 
of the animal and that of the plant. Man, beast, fowl, 
reptile, fish, mollusk, worm, and polyp are composed of 
clustered units of the same character of protoplasm, with 
a nucleus; and this is equally true of plants. 

Traced back to its earliest state, the plant rises as does 
man in a particle of nucleated protoplasm, which is the 
basis of all life. The plant raises the less complex sub- 
stances of carbonic acid, water, and ammonia to living 
protoplasm, while the animal can raise only complex sub- 
stances of dead protoplasm to living protoplasm. Remove 
from the living protoplasm either carbonic acid, water, 
or ammonia, and life ceases. The rays of the sun pro- 
duce the same disturbances on the protoplasm of the 
plant and animal, creating nucleated action, resulting in 
growth in both, and vital action in the animal. The 
vegetable receives support from mineral and atmospheric 
substances, while the animal must take its nourishment 
from the vegetable and other animal matter; but life as an 
abstract quality or quantity is produced by the combined 
action of light, heat, and water. Every exertion, mental 
or physical, of the animal results in a loss of vital force, to 
be renewed only by a draft on the source of vitality. The 
decomposed rocks are held in solution and acted on by 
light and heat, which create disturbances in the materials, 
causing the aggregation of homogeneous molecules to 
form chemical combinations. A single molecule is first 
formed into a cell, to which, by the law of afiinity, others 
are added, forming an aggregate of cells, and in the end 
constituting the lowest form of vegetable life, thereby lay- 



And Christian Mythology. 227 

ing the foundation, from which evolve, first the lower, and 
finally the higher forms of animal life. 

H. C. Bastian, professor of anatomy and physiology in 
the London University (1880), says: "An attentive con- 
sideration of mental phenomena of living beings fails to 
assure us of the existence of the mind as a self-existent 
entity. It is quite the reverse. Very many of those who 
are the most entitled to form a judgment upon this sub- 
ject regard it as a legitimate inference, from existing 
knowledge, that conscious states, and, indeed, mental 
phenomena, are dependent on the properties and molec- 
ular activities of nerve tissues, just as magnetic phe- 
nomena are dependent on the properties and molecular 
action of certain kinds or states of iron. . . . Reflex 
action consists of ingoing fibers continuous in a nerve 
center with so-called sensory nerve cells, which in their 
turn are in communication with some group or groups of 
motor nerve cells, whence issue outgoing fibers for the 
transmission of stimuH to muscles. Such groups are con- 
tinually increasing in number and structural development 
during animal progress. We shall find in reflex action 
support for the doctrine that the nervous system gener- 
ally is to be regarded as the organ of mind, and as the 
nerve system continues to grow, intelligence would be 
thus subject to actual growth." 

In concluding this subject, it may be said, there can be 
no doubt, so far as our knowledge goes, founded on 
anatomy, physiology, chemistry, and the other sciences, 
that mind is the result of the flex and reflex action of the 
nervous system, set in motion by coming in contact with 
external objects through one or more of our sensory or- 
gans, thereb}^ producing mental and physical phe- 
nomena. But all this docs not settle the vital question of 



228 Co7nmentari€S on Hebrew 

life, for science is incapable of determining the full scope 
of the source of mental and physical activity. And, as I 
understand him, this is just where Professor Huxley 
leaves the matter. 

In his "Evolution of Life," Dr. H. W. Mitchell tells us 
that life is a form of chemical force acting on organic 
substances through the law of affinity; that a group of 
chemical compounds known as albuminoids enter largely 
into animal bodies, as well as into the most of our food; 
that this subtle force of chemical affinity possesses the 
power of so combining and arranging atoms or molecules 
as to form other and more complex bodies, such as 
changing gases into jelly-like albuminous compounds 
called protoplasm, which is the first step in the evolution 
of vital organisms endowed with the principle called life. 

Conclusion. 

Every system of religion, whatever may have been its 
status in former times, must in this day of free thought 
and advanced science be able to stand the test of criti- 
cism and reason, or it must take its place among the 
fables, legends, and myths of the dead past. Many of 
the ancient systems, resting on, if possible, better founda- 
tions than the present living ones, have passed into 
oblivion, leaving doubtful manuscripts and more enduring 
monumental inscriptions of their influence and power over 
the minds and bodies of men. The great and powerful 
religious systems of Chaldea, Babylon, Egypt, Scandina- 
via, Persia, Greece, and Rome, which so long swayed the 
destinies of the world, and were accepted as divine and 
immortal truths, have passed away to sleep in the grave of 
eternity; while in India, tlie cradle of all religions, and in 



And Christian MythoJogff. 2*20 

China, these institutions are strugfi^hni;- in their dentli- 
throes. 

Judaism is a thing of the past, vibrating between hfc 
and death, its soul having already departed, leaving the 
body to be claimed for burial by strangers. And, last of 
all, Christianity is on trial, not for its murder of thirty 
or forty millions of innocent men, women, and children, 
and other crimes, but for its claim to be of supernatural 
origin. 

Criticism, science, history, reason, and common sense 
are the prosecuting witnesses, and they have been 
brought into court as the result of free thought and free 
speech, in spite of the strenuous efforts of the church to 
crush them. 

Listen to Byron while he says 

"Even Gods must yield, religions take their turn, 
'Twas Jove's, 'tis Mahomet's ; and other creeds will rise 
With other years, till man shall learn 
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds. 
Poor child of doubt and death, whose hope is built on 
reeds." 

Dr. L. Buchner, the great German scientist, in his 
"Man in the Past, Present, and Future," speaking of 
Christianity, says: "It stands, by its dogmatic portion or 
contents, in such striking and irreconcilable, nay abso- 
lutely absurd contradiction with all the acquisitions and 
principles of modern science, that its future tragical fate 
can only be a question of time." 

We are living in an age of reason and conunon sense, 
an age of science and toleration, an age of progress and 
growing humanity. The world is better than it was in 
the dark ages; man is better to-day than he was yestcr- 



'230 iJonnnentartes on Hebreio 

day; and he will be better to-morrow than he is to-day. 
Even the mythologian is betraying signs of awakening 
humanity. Whether life be the result of force acting on 
organized forms, and dependent on such forms for its 
existence, or whether it be independent matter, residing 
in such organized forms and self-existent, science gives 
no response. And whether Hfe is to continue beyond the 
grave is a problem resting on the hidden and immutable 
laws of nature, the key to which is as accessible to the in- 
sect and the quadruped as to the scientist or the priest. 
Man in his onward course is no longer a slave to super- 
stition. 

The mythologian may lament his fading glory, he may 
hurl his anathemas, he may bewail his declining influence, 
he may parade his pit of torment, and he may call upon 
his self-made divinities to hurl their thunderbolts, while 
the sensible world smiles with contempt at his childish 
simplicity. 

The church has lost its power to use instruments of 
torture and to apply the torch to an unbelieving world. 
The loss of this power carries the church down with it; 
its death is only a question of time. 

When the m3^thologian shall have shuffled off his 
clerical garb, and when his doctrines, his dogmas, his 
superstitions, and his nonsense have all to the grave 
gone down, may the world forgive and forget his errors, 
his crimes, and his intolerance, while his ashes repose in 
peace and tranquillity under the ever-watchful care and 
guidance of Horus, Ra, and Turn, where no bugle's blast 
shall wake him to battle asrain. 



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